


Galactic Course Correction

by CoPilotOnasi



Category: Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Non-Canon Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2020-12-27 11:47:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 29,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21118280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoPilotOnasi/pseuds/CoPilotOnasi
Summary: The year is 32,503 TYA/3950 BBY, 75 days after Meetra Surik defeated the Sith Triumvirate and destroyed Malachor V 25 days before 32,502's end. While Surik is on Coruscant reestablishing the Jedi Order, Admiral Carth Onasi has a recurring dream warning of Surik's failure and death if she pursues Revan alone; and Jolee Bindo, self-exiled Jedi, is dream-visited by three dead Jedi masters warning of a dark future for the Republic and galaxy if she pursues Revan alone - but they offer an alternative. After the men tell Surik their dreams, she heeds them and they form a crew aboard the Ebon Hawk to find Revan together. While star-charting parsecs in the Esstran sector early in the quest, the ship is pulled off-course and snatched out of hyperspace by a black hole, knocking the trio out. After inexplicably surviving, and waking to find the unresponsive ship crashing toward a planet, they parachute and soon learn they're in a foreign galaxy on a technologically infantile planet called Earth, in common-era year 2017, whose inhabitants believe Onasi, Bindo and Surik and their galaxy are fictitious - but that have info about Revan critical to their quest and native galaxy's future. Can they ever make it back home to put it to use?





	1. Prologue - Reference Calendar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 10/23/2020: If you're new to this work, welcome. If you've stuck with this work for a while, I STRONGLY encourage you to reread Chapters 2 through 9, as some significant updates and improvements have been made. Thank you for your patience, enjoy the story and may the Force be with you.
    
    
    REFERENCE CALENDAR & NOTES
    
    IMPORTANT NOTE:	GALACTIC STANDARD YEARS DON'T HAVE LEAP YEARS
    		FORMAL DATES EQUAL THEIR NUMERICAL SEQUENCE IN THE YEAR BECAUSE 18 DAYS OF THE YEAR ARE COUNTED OUTSIDE OF THE 10 MONTHS OF THE YEAR.
    328/32,502	= BATTLE OF TELOS/DARTH NIHILUS DESTROYED
    343/32,502	= DARTHS SION/TRAYA AND MALACHOR V DESTROYED
    
    REPUBLIC FETE WEEKS & FESTIVAL DAYS ARE COUNTED OUTSIDE OF AN OFFICIAL MONTH
    001-005/32,503	= REPUBLIC NEW YEAR FETE WEEK
    216-220/32,503	= FESTIVAL OF LIFE FETE WEEK
    326-330/32,503	= FESTIVAL OF THE STARS FETE WEEK
    366-368/32,503	= INDIVIDUAL REPUBLIC HOLIDAY-DAYS
    
    EARTH REFERENCE	        PRIMEDAY	CENTAXDAY	ZHELLSDAY	TAUNGSDAY	BENDUDAY
    
    32,502/3951 BBY	        325	        [326		327		328		329
    331=07/06/2017	        330]	        *331/M10	332		333		334
    			335		336		337		338		339
    			340		341		342		343		344
    			345		346		347		348		349
    			350		351		352		353		354
    			355		356		357		358		359
    			360		361		362		363		364
    32,502/3951 BBY	        365		*366		*367		*368		[001/NEW YEAR FETE WEEK[001=08/13/2017]
    006/32,503=08/18/2017	002		003		004		005]		*006/OFFICIAL MONTH 1
    			007		008		009		010		011
    			012		013		014		015		016
    			017		018		019		020		021
    			022		023		024		025		026
    			027		028		029		030		031
    			032		033		034		035		036
    041=09/16/2017	        037		038		039		040		*041/OFFICIAL MONTH 2
    			042		043		044		045		046
    			047		048		049		050		051
    			052		053		054		055		056
    			057		058		059		060		061
    			062		063		064		065		066
    			067		068		069		070		071
    076=10/27/2017	        072		073		074		075		*076/OFFICIAL MONTH 3
    			077		078		079		080		081
    			082		083		084		085		086
    			087		088		089		090		091
    			092		093		094		095		096
    			097		098		099		100		101
    			102		103		104		105		106
    111=12/02/2017	        107		108		109		110		*111/OFFICIAL MONTH 4
    			112		113		114		115		116
    			117		118		119		121		121
    			122		123		124		125		126
    			127		128		129		130		131
    			132		133		134		135		136
    			137		138		139		140		141
    146=01/06/2018	        142		143		144		145		*146/OFFICIAL MONTH 5
    			147		148		149		150		151
    			152		153		154		155		156
    			157		158		159		160		161
    			162		163		164		165		166
    			167		168		169		170		171
    			172		173		174		175		176
    181=02/09/2018	        177		178		179		180		*181/OFFICIAL MONTH 6
    			182		183		184		185		186
    			187		188		189		190		191
    			192		193		194		195		196
    			197		198		199		200		201
    			202		203		204		205		206
    			207		208		209		210		211
    216=03/16/2018	        212		213		214		215		[216/FESTIVAL OF LIFE FETE WEEK
    221=03/21/2018	        217		218		219		220]		*221/OFFICIAL MONTH 7
    			222		223		224		225		226
    			227		228		229		230		231
    			232		233		234		235		236
    			237		238		239		240		241
    			242		243		244		245		246
    			247		248		249		250		251
    256=04/25/2018	        252		253		254		255		*256/OFFICIAL MONTH 8
    			257		258		259		260		261
    			262		263		264		265		266
    			267		268		269		270		271
    			272		273		274		275		276
    			277		278		279		280		281
    			282		283		284		285		286
    291=05/30/2018	        287		288		289		290		*291/OFFICIAL MONTH 9
    			292		293		294		295		296
    			297		298		299		300		301
    			302		303		304		305		306
    			307		308		309		310		311
    			312		313		314		315		316
    			317		318		319		320		321
    326=07/04/2018	        322		323		324		325		[326/FESTIVAL OF STARS FETE WEEK
    331=07/09/2018	        327		328		329		330]		*366=08/13/2018		331/OFFICIAL MONTH 10
    			332		333		334		335		336
    			337		338		339		340		341
    			342		343		344		345		346
    			347		348		349		350		351
    			352		353		354		355		356
    			357		358		359		360		361
    366=08/13/2018	        362		363		364		365		[366/HOLIDAY 1
    368=08/15/2018	        367/HOLIDAY 2	368/HOLIDAY 3]


	2. If She Goes After Revan Alone...

031/32,503[THO YOR ARRIVAL TIME BASIS], 11:00 GALACTIC STANDARD TIME ~ UNIT 19.73, APARTMENT COMPLEX OSK, RESIDENTIAL MODULE 086, CITADEL STATION ~ TELOS

Carth Thani Onasi, three-star fleet admiral in the Galactic Republic Navy, sat solemnly at a dining table in his one-bedroom apartment with his 21 year-old son, Citadel Station Telos Security Force Lieutenant Dustil Thani Onasi, commemorating the eighth anniversary of the death Morgana May Onasi. Eight years earlier, on the thirty-first day of 32,495 after Tho Yor Arrival to Tython, Carth's wife had died from injuries she had suffered during an orbital attack on the surface of planet Telos Four, an attack carried out under Darth Malak's command by traitor to the Republic, Sith admiral Saul Karath. On that day Dustil had been 13 years old, 61 days away from his fourteenth birthday, when the Sith had captured him and sent him to a reeducation camp where he was then raised as a Sith. It hadn't been until 332/32,497 Trill-Yirt-Aurek – two 368-day Galactic Standard years and 301 days later, when Carth had found his son while accompanying the amnesiac ex-Darth Revan and Padawan Bastila on a Jedi mission to search for ancient star maps to the Star Forge.

By the time Carth and Revan had located Dustil – who had since turned out to be a Force-adept – training as a Sith cadet at the Korriban Academy, he was 16 years-old, 128 days away from his seventeenth birthday. With Revan and Juhani's help, Juhani having only been a few years older than Dustil at the time and having been able to relate to having her home world decimated, Carth had shown Dustil the evil of the dark sided Sith ideology and had convinced him to leave Korriban. Dustil had agreed to leave the Sith hadn't wanted to leave Korriban right away, wishing to look around the academy for information that could help Carth and Revan in their mission. Since Revan had still needed to jump through hoops for academy masters in order to get to the Tomb of Naga Sadow to collect a datacron copy of the final Star Forge star map, Carth had told his son that he had until Revan had finished his business on Korriban, and Revan had promised Dustil he would keep academy masters, and other troublesome cadets, busy and distracted from his reconnaissance.

About 13.5 five-day Galactic Standard weeks later – and about 8.5 weeks after the Star Forge had been destroyed out in the Lehon System above the planet of Rakata Prime – Carth and Dustil had attended their first mutually-attended Telos Commemoration Ceremony together on Coruscant on 031/32,498, to honor the memory of Morgana Onasi. On that same day, they also mutually-attended and observed the session in the Republic Senate called by Supreme Chancellor Tol Cressa that approved the Telosian Restoration Project and the construction of Citadel Station, a massive space station orbiting the planet Telos Four, to serve as the headquarters. 61 days after that, Carth had celebrated Dustil's seventeenth birthday with him. Later, after completing all his academic studies before age 19, Dustil had joined the Telos Security Force Academy, graduating a year later and joining the Trill-Senth-Forn by age 20. Dustil had been among the officers who had neutralized Sith troopers on Citadel Station during Darth Nihilus' attack on Telos 71 days before present.

The admiral glanced over at his only son, who was now his own height at 1.88 meters tall and about 15 kilograms lighter, but with a strong likeness to himself and a more subtle resemblance to Morgana. Like Carth, Dustil had brown hair and brown eyes and had likewise chosen to grow out a short, jawline-hugging chin-strap beard. But Carth could easily see echoes of Morgana in the shape of his eyes, ears, nose and the manner in which he spoke, partly owed to the fact that Carth hadn't been able to stay at home and be around him much during the wars. Some of Morgana's softer quirks could be seen in the way he rolled his eyes or the way he wrinkled his nose at anything that he found simultaneously amusing and disgusting. At the moment, Dustil was slowly working through his quarter-meter bantha beef brunch sandwich while browsing a thick, heavy, album of family photographs which had miraculously survived the decimation of their house and planet eight years earlier. “If I ever have a daughter,” Dustil said thoughtfully, “I want to name her after Mother...”

“I think she would have really liked that.” Carth nodded with a wistful smile as Dustil looked across the table at him, “Considering everything you had to overcome, she would be proud of who you are today.”

“I hope so...” the young man sighed, shaking his head solemnly, then looking at the album again, “I just, I just wish she was still with us, it hurts knowing she'll never meet any children I ever have.” he lamented.

“I know, I miss my parents too, lately, in addition to your mother.” Carth answered, “But don't ever forget that a measure of her lives on inside you, both in your genetics and your memory. You are her legacy.”

Dustil smiled sadly at Carth with a nod, “I know...” he replied, then cleared his throat, “On that note, ever since we all survived the Sith onslaught against Telos and Citadel 14 weeks ago, I've been thinking...”

“I heard that they're calling it the 'Battle of Telos' now.” Carth responded, then cocked his head, “Anyway, what have you been thinking about? You've mentioned kids – do you have a girlfriend or something?”

“No, nothing serious – just some close friends...” Dustil replied shrugging, “But I was thinking, if you ever wanna find another woman, I don't mind.” he said, “but my one rule is – I've gotta like her.” he added.

Carth stared back at his son incredulously, wondering where this topic had crawled out from. “That's out of the question, Dustil,” Carth responded adamantly, “I'm not dating again or hunting for another wife.”

“You're not even gonna date?” Dustil asked, furrowing his eyebrows incredulously, “I know you're twice my age but you're still relatively young, are you already beyond your phase of needing _certain_ things?”

Carth scowled and balked, not about to discuss a lack of a sex life with him. “Dustil, I have no plans to date another woman.” he declared, “No woman in the galaxy could replace what your mother meant to me. If it's having siblings that you're after, I'd suggest you marry a woman with some of her own to become your in-laws, because that's the only way you're getting any.” Dustil rolled his eyes and dropped the subject.

10/01/2017[ANNO DOMINI TIME BASIS], 01:00 POST-MERIDIEM, PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME ~ 8515 SEMIAHMOO DR, BLAINE, WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ~ EARTH

A 5'4” tall olive-complected 33-year-old science-fiction romance author, Destiny Sophia McCullough opened lids of two large pet-food-storage bins in her home's utility room and scooped dry cat food into a bowl, which she kept out of the dog's reach up on the granite countertop for her three year-old Himalayan cat, Obi-wan. After sliding the bowl against the counter's backsplash she closed the cat-food bin and rolled it underneath the countertop into a cabinet cutout. She then scooped dry dog food into another bowl on the sandstone-slate-tiled floor for her three-year-old Cockapoo dog, Yoda, and closed the food bin, sliding it into place beside the cat-food bin and closing the lower-cabinet doors. She flipped her waist-length, straight, dark brown hair behind her shoulder and collected the water bowls from beside the pet-food bowls and rinsed them out, idly peering out the three horizontally adjacent windows above the stainless-steel utility sink she was rinsing them out in, located directly across from the matching slate-gray, large-capacity washer and dryer.

Those south-facing windows were in a lengthwise wall and overlooked the driveway terrace which bridged that main house's east-facing front entrance, four south-facing garages, the rental suite's south-facing door and the long driveway from the street. Polished pinewood upper and lower cabinetry hugged the room's perimeter except for the long south-wall's windows and exterior door to the right of them, the short west-wall's centered door to the half-bathroom and the north-wall's door to the square utility hallway, washer and dryer After refilling the water bowls Destiny returned them to their respective places beside the food bowls and opened the door to the hallway. The feline and canine ran in, Obi-wan leaping up onto the counter to reach his bowls and Yoda running to his bowls on the floor by the bathroom door. She leaned over the counter and talked to Obi-wan, scratching behind his dark ears and petting his fluffy cream-colored back while he ate before kneeling on the floor beside her cinnamon-brown dog and doing the same before leaving the room.

After stepping out into the hallway, Destiny continued through an archway ahead of her, turning left into the longer garage hallway and heading to the kitchen. The kitchen's four entrances included the west-half of the north-wall's exterior door from the backyard terrace, an east-wall archway from the garage hallway, a central-south-wall archway from the foyer hallway and the perpendicular inner-west-wall archway from the dining room. The north-wall's center, across from that foyer hallway, had a built-in desk matching that kitchen's granite counter-tops and pinewood cabinetry. That north-wall's east-half had a stainless-steel dishwasher and an adjacent sink;.the east-wall had a stainless-steel double-oven and six-burner gas range with a griddle, a range-hood and a matching counter-top microwave. The south-wall's east-half had a prep sink to the left of a stainless-steel double-door refrigerator with freezer-door ice and water dispensers. The kitchen's central east-half had a two-tiered, island-bar hybrid with a prep sink and stools along the west-facing bar counter.

Continuing across tile-flooring which matched that of the utility room, utility and garage hallways, Destiny grabbed a bag of mini-pretzels from an upper cabinet and wound counter-clockwise around the island, passing between the side of the refrigerator and the dining room archway before crossing into the square hallway linking the kitchen, an STC or a shower-tub-combo bathroom – to the east of the hallway across from the dining room wall bounding the hallway's west side, and the foyer, the flooring changing to white-marble contiguous with the foyer, den and office/gym hallways. The foyer hallway terminated at the south walls of the bathroom and dining room, opening up into the white-painted foyer and living room with double-story volume ceilings and two-floors-worth of windows spanning cross both the living room's rear west-facing wall and the foyer's front east-facing wall, the rooms delineated by the living room's buttermilk carpet and the foyer's white-marble tile and the overhead loft balcony spanning between the foyer hallway and office/gym hallway.

The foyer's east-facing front wall had two stacked rows of four windows per row with the upper frames of the upper row of windows forming a unified arch, both rows spanning 80 percent of the wall with the pinewood and vertical-twin-pane glass double-doors and above-door arched window spanning the final 20 percent. Two yards in front of the front doors was the base of a carpeted, pinewood-railed grand staircase which ascended northeast before curving northward near the windows then northwest before terminating at the landing that merged westward into the loft balcony. The living room's two rows of west-facing windows overlooked an in-ground, presently-covered swimming pool three steps down and a broad paved backyard terrace with a grassy yard occupying the rear two-thirds of the upper back yard. The upper yard ended at the thick tree-tops which overhung a cliff, their trunks originating from down below along the 106-foot stretch of north pacific coastline which was accessible with the winding ramp built/carved down shallower slopes.

Destiny briefly glanced at her living room as she crossed the foyer, the furniture arranged in baseball-diamond formation, the seating-slipcovers displaying vivid autumnal colors including yellowish green, yellow, orange, red and brown. She continued past the living room and out of the foyer into the T-shaped office/gym hallway, passing the two hall-flanking coat closets as well as the turn-off to the west-end of that hallway at the door of the natural-light-rich, window-abundant gymnasium in the southwest corner of the house. Before Destiny had designated it as the gym, it had simply been an atrium or sun-room with home's only other half-bathroom; but, she had wanted a gym with good light, ventilation and proximity to a bathroom, so she had made it a gym. She reached the hallway's south end and entered her office to the west and shut the pinewood door behind her, having major computer-gaming, video-recording and video-uploading to do, now that her mundane chores were finished, and not wanting untimely, well-meaning visits from her pets to get in the way.

050/32,503 TRILL-YIRT-AUREK, 21:00 GREK-SENTH-TRILL ~ ABOARD THE SOJOURN ~ IN HYPERSPACE FROM ARKANIA TO ITHOR

It was 21:00 on Taungsday as Carth laid down on his bunk for the night aboard the Republic Cruiser _Sojourn_, his navy flagship, which was in hyperspace on a hyper-jump from Arkania to Ithor where himself and others would linger for a day to discuss a few major recent events at Telos and its orbiting Citadel Station with the Ithorians, including Czerka Corporation's recent expulsion. By about 21:15, he had fallen asleep.

_Carth found himself sitting at the round dining table in the command lounge drinking a hot cup of caffe, the only other person in the room with him being Morgana Onasi, sitting across from him. Her shiny hair was honey-blond, her eyes hazel with more green than brown and she wore a solid white robe after the style of a colored Jedi robe and sipping a cup of the same herbal tea she had always preferred on Telos before she... “Morgana?” Carth uttered her name, drawing the woman's gaze, reminding him how beautiful she was – had been – and how he had fallen in love with her the first time._

_ “Hi, Sweetie,” Morgana replied with a familiar warmth in her tone and tender affection in her smile and gaze, “are you busy? I would like to talk to you about something, if you have the time...”_

_ Carth arched his brows in surprise, “I thought I was asleep...” he replied, “If I still am – I gotta be if you're here – then I'm not going anywhere right now. What do you wanna talk about, Dear?”_

_ “It's been over eight years now, Carth,” Morgana replied, thereby letting him know that she was fully aware of her deceased status, “and you're still young.” she added, arching a brow pointedly._

_ As sweet as it was to see her, even in just a seemingly-real dream, he didn't like where this conversation was headed, “Yes...” he answered tenuously, “Young enough to keep up with my duties...”_

_ “You're also young enough to need both emotional companionship and physical intimacy,” Morgana answered undeterred, “and I want you to have what you need. What do you say?” she asked._

_ “Morgana,” Carth groaned, “respectfully, I'm gonna tell you the same thing I told Dustil. No woman in the galaxy could replace what you meant – and what you still mean – to me.” he declared._

_ Morgana sighed exasperatedly, smiling gratefully at him, “I appreciate that, Carth...” she said, “but letting a woman love you, and you loving her back in return, isn't for replacing my memory.”_

Carth woke up, opening his eyes and frowning having never dreamed anything like the dream he had just had. Other than one conversation he had had with his son 19 days earlier, he didn't understand why he would dream such a thing now. There were no other women he was even remotely interested in and whatever his sensual needs might be, he ignored them by exercising and focusing on his duties. As for his emotional needs, outside of his dedication to his son, Telos and the Republic, he had neither the time nor patience for anything else. Seeing his bedside chronometer glowing 22:45, he sighed, rolled over and went back to sleep.

_Carth stood facing a viewport overlooking Telos from the conference room of the Republic Center for Military Operations satellite office, reliving while somehow witnessing from outside himself, his post-Battle-of-Telos conversation with Meetra Surik, the Jedi exile after she and a task-force had killed Darth Nihilus and destroyed his flagship the Ravager from which he had attacked Telos. Carth and Surik had discussed Revan and their history when Surik had asked how they met. “We saved the Republic.” he continued on after the story of the Star Forge mission. “But it was like the war didn't end for him. He would keep remembering things that he'd done – and it kept driving him. And I think he finally remembered something terrible that he'd done during the Mandalorian Wars. And he went to put an end to it. He left a lot of people who cared about him behind. But I think he did it because he thought it was the right thing to do. But whatever he set out to do, I... I don't think he succeeded.”_

_ “Neither will she, nor survive to return if she goes after Revan alone.” a female voice which hadn't been in that original discussion said, sounding close but feeling distant, and he spun around so fast that the blaster jerked within a weapons belt at his waist underneath the split-hem of his red-collared, gold-decorated black uniform blazer and strapped to the outer hips of his black uniform pants._

_ “Did you hear that?” Carth asked the blue-eyed, olive-toned woman with straight brown chin-length hair who stared back at him, “Did you just hear another woman speak in the third person?”_

_ “No,” Surik replied, shaking her head, “all I heard was your speculation about whether Revan was successful in whatever he set out to do.” she clarified, “Is something wrong, Admiral Onasi?” Carth didn't answer right away, looking away and running through a list of possibilities in his mind. Bastila was in another room of the same satellite office keeping her and Revan's almost four-year-old son Vaner busy while Carth met with Surik to discuss whether she knew of Revan's whereabouts. But that warning, ominous as it was, had come from neither Bastila nor Surik, so who had it come from?_

_ Carth looked at Surik again, “Would you please help me search this room for any non-standard audio-broadcasting or listening devices?” he requested, determined to find the source of the voice._

_ “As you wish...” Surik replied, her tone telling him she thought he was going insane, and they searched the floor, walls, furniture and ceiling, but found nothing. “Are you feeling okay, Admiral?”_

The dream faded and Carth woke up again, this time at 23:16, and sat up in his sleeveless white undershirt rubbing his eyes while struggling to make sense, if that was possible, of both of his disturbing dreams. The second dream had been more disturbing than the first, and far more consequential if the speaker was even remotely correct. But who and  _where_ was she? Had this only been a dream or something more serious?


	3. The Nexus of Time, Space and Imagination...

10/14/2017 AD, 10:30 PM, PDT ~ DESTINY'S PROPERTY, BLAINE, WA, USA ~ EARTH

Destiny sat in her office staring at the blank page of the open word-processing application on her desktop personal computer, which served as both her gaming and writing computer when she wasn't using her laptop personal computer elsewhere. Including that current night, it was the thirteenth day and fourteenth night, in a row, that her impetus to type on either her professional or hobbyist fan-fiction works-in-progress had vanished as soon as her fingertips were poised over the keyboard. She sighed in frustration, leaning back in her black patent-leather-upholstered, armrest-equipped desk-chair on castors, carefully massaging her dark brown eyes through her eyelids. On the previous 13 nights, she had wound up gaming for several hours for fun, stress-relief and in hopes of encountering something that would jog her mind and motivation beyond that infernal blank page on her computer monitor screen. But gaming into the predawn hours wasn't an option for her this time because she had to wake up by around dawn to receive a large sand delivery to her property.

With the aid of her eight-month-elder 33-year-old cousin Jeffrey Charles McCullough, his sister and her younger cousin 30-year-old Leia Joanna McCullough Barrett and Leia's 31-year-old husband Harrison Richard Barrett, Destiny would decorate her front yard for Halloween, now 17 days away. She opened her eyes and glanced around her office from behind the L-shaped pinewood executive desk which occupied the central-four-eighths of the northern three-sevenths of the room. Her desk's front branch faced a long curtained window in the south wall's central-four-eighths, with two pinewood-frame black patent leather futons and a pinewood end-table between the futons arranged in a line against the western seven-eighths of the 16-foot long south wall. Both futons were convertible into full-size beds, with 75-inch long, 54-inch wide, eight-inch thick mattresses. The desk's left branch faced the east wall's pinewood door, that branch's left or rear end built-in to the east end of the built-in pinewood shelving that spanned the western six-eighths of the north wall.

In the central five-sevenths of the 14-foot west wall between the office and gym were windows with a centered glass door that shared daylight from the gym's south and west-facing outer ceiling and walls with the office. Flanking the office fireplace was shelving like the north wall's but deeper, with granite surfaces on the two counter-height shelves, a hot and cold water dispenser standing against the pinewood-paneled wall between the east office door and the fireplace's north side shelves. On the south wall's leftover space hung framed video game and comic book promotion posters while the pinewood mantle displayed literary awards awarded to either herself or her long-dead, black-haired, brown-eyed father, Nathaniel Michael McCullough, posing either alone or with her siblings, her cousins or their parents such as her father's non-identical twin, naval officer brother Charles John McCullough and his wife Maria Leah. Above the mantle hung a large picture of five year-old Destiny posing with her father at a 1989 film premiere of Disney's _The Little Mermaid_.

In mid spring 1957, the brothers had been born to a Scottish-American father, an officer in the U.S. Navy and a Laotian immigrant mother whom he had met while serving overseas before marrying. Nathaniel, the elder by twelve hours, had resembled their mother most while Charles had most resembled their father. Nathaniel had married in late spring 1975, fathering two sons and two daughters, with Destiny arriving last in early summer 1984. Meanwhile, Charles, who had been serving in the U.S. Navy since summer 1975, married Maria Leah Salvini in late fall 1982, fathering Jeff, born in mid fall 1983, and Leia, born in late fall 1986. Destiny had lost contact with her cousins, when her parents had begun divorcing after Christmas 1990, and hadn't reunited until fall 2002 when she found herself attending the same junior college as Jeff, finding out her uncle had died in New York in September 2001. In 2004 Destiny and Jeff had transferred to a university together before graduating together in 2006 – Jeff graduating into the U.S. Navy rank of Ensign before serving.

Leia had entered her second year at a university and had just started her fourth year in 2008 when her mother had been killed in a train collision. The ensuing grief eventually led to Leia dropping out of college, with loans owed, dating Harry and marrying him and in 2014, Jeff, now a lieutenant, had switched out of active duty service to reserve, all leading to them living in a rental suite over the garage wing of Destiny's house by the latter half of 2014. That had within the two months after she had bought it with personal savings accrued from the combination of investments and publishing royalties. Including the one bedroom, one bathroom rental suite, that property had a 5,885-square-foot interior with five bedrooms, seven bathrooms and three fireplaces and the exterior had an in-ground swimming pool, outdoor fireplace, big yard and a private beach.

Since they lived on the property, too, it made perfect sense to enlist their aid in decorating the front yard for Halloween 2017, which would be their fourth Halloween in Blaine, Washington in three and a quarter years.

Destiny chuckled to herself as she turned off the lamp, standing and leaving the office while mentally reviewing their plan. The long driveway along a southern one-third strip of Destiny's property front, from the gates at the street to the outer edge of the parkway terrace, would be covered with sand to resemble _Star Wars_ planet Tatooine while the parallel, grassy and arboreal, northern two-thirds of the property front would be speckled with Wookiee, Katarn and Kinrath manikins to resemble _Star Wars_ planet Kashyyyk. The driveway terrace would also be divergently decorated to resemble a signage-heavy Tatooine starport along the southeast, southwest and northwest sides, the two west garage doors resembling Tatooine hangar doors, and the Kashyyyk docking ring at the northeast occupying 60 percent of the driveway terrace with two garage doors resembling Kashyyyk's 'Great Walkway' gates. Destiny called her pets after reaching the stairs, Yoda arriving to climb with her while Obi-wan took the shortcut tower between the stairs and the foyer windows.

064/32,503 TRILL-YIRT-AUREK, 06:30 GREK-SENTH-TRILL ~ BLACK HOLE DINER, ENTERTAINMENT MODULE 081, CITADEL STATION ~ TELOS

Carth sat at a table in his Republic uniform in a three-sided dining booth at the Black Hole Diner with two ex-Jedi, having been summoned off the _Sojourn_ for breakfast by an anonymous note hand-delivered by a courier droid. That note had come from the 81-year-old potato-brown-skinned man with bald head, brown eyes and bushy white eyebrows, Jolee Bindo who had been living mostly on the Wookiee homeworld Kashyyyk in Zaalbar's village for most of the six years since the end of the Jedi Civil War. He wore an Olive-green button-front sweater with a Spinach-green tunic and Wroshyr-green pants. The elderly man had also sent a cryptic note to the 34-year-old Meetra Surik, whose straight brown chin-length hair had since grown out to throat-length in the past 104 days. She currently wore a Caramel-brown button-front sweater with a Bantha-brown tunic and Chocolate-brown pants. The waitress had already brought their breakfast orders, but Jolee had been content to eat while Carth and Surik waited to find out why Jolee had called the meeting.

“I'm glad I was able to catch both you two before you left the station,” Jolee said while spooning sugar into his cup of caffe, “especially you.” he said, focusing on Surik before glancing between her and Carth. For the past 14 nights from the fiftieth to last night, I've had recurring dreams with joint visitations from three deceased Jedi masters, with Vandar being the only one whom I had met, giving me information of profound importance. Those I didn't know were a human man named Relin Druur with light skin and ponytailed brown hair and a member of Vandar's species whom I had never heard of whose name was revealed to be Yoda. On the first night, Relin said: 'Death, yet the Force. Chaos, yet harmony. Passion, yet serenity.' Vandar continued: 'Ignorance, yet knowledge. Emotion, yet peace. The Force is one.' and Yoda said: 'Each one with the Force, Relin Druur, Vandar Tokare and Yoda are.' I've since researched their names and learned that Relin Druur had died in a hyper-jump accident 1,000 years ago in a battle over Phaegon Three. I found no Yoda.”

“On the next night they visited me again, reviewing all they had said that night before, then adding to it. Relin said: 'On assignment we guard the nexus of time, space and imagination.' Vandar said: 'Future asks the past for an alternative to default destination.' and Yoda said: 'With a future always in motion possible to grant the petition is.' On the third night, after review, Relin said: 'Conflicting appointments scheduled with two divergent destinies.' Vandar said: 'Your obedience or negligence decides which appointment is kept.' and Yoda said: 'Ultimately affect the entire galaxy, your course-of-action shall.' On the fourth night, after the review, Relin warned: 'If the original mistakes are repeated more bloodshed lies ahead.' Vandar said: 'Fatality awaits Meetra Surik if she pursues Revan without help.' and Yoda said: 'If Revan the Exile pursues solely, to return she is destined not.” Carth frowned, thinking of his own recurring dreams over the past 14 nights and starting to suspect the two matters might be related. He would tell them his dream, but wanted to hear Jolee's first.

“On the fifth night, after review, Relin said: 'These two people are chosen to join the Exile's quest for Revan.' Vandar said: 'The presence of Carth Onasi activates the superior appointment.” Carth cocked one eyebrow, eating another forkful. “And Yoda said: 'Needed for uncommon insight, the participation of Jolee Bindo is.' On the sixth night while I was on my way to Telos, after a review, Relin said: 'A prince of darkness predating my generation sows evil in yours.' Vandar said: 'Having sown bloodshed for millennia he now pursues galacticide.' then Yoda stated: 'Forewarned though the ancient prince is, set his own trap he has. On the seventh night, for a reason I have yet to figure out, the speaker order shuffled. Vandar said: 'Imaginative imagines an alternative to the default destination.' Relin said: 'Their extraordinary affections avail galactic course correction.' and Yoda said: 'Imaginative's academic knowledge her instinctual belief precedes.' Order shuffled again on the eighth night. Vandar said: 'The Katarr Massacre caused the unlocking of Opportunity's door.”

That statement made no sense to Carth, given how many Jedi lives and other lives who had been snuffed out without a fight and it made less sense for Vandar to be saying it as he was one of those massacred. “Yoda said:” Jolee continued on about the eighth night, “Opened Opportunity's door the defeat of the Sith Triumvirate has.' and Relin said: 'If the Exile proceeds alone Opportunity's door closes and locks.' One more speaker order shuffle took place on the ninth night. Yoda said: 'Upon Revan and the Exile's fates, the future of the galaxy rests.' Vandar said: 'A refusal to heed us rejects the future's petition to the past.' and Relin said: 'Rejection of petition keeps the default destination appointment.' On the tenth through the fourteenth nights, the first five nights' messages repeated but in reverse order with that Jedi Code recited in the _correct_ order.”

“The only recurring dreams I've had are of a personal nature,” Surik said, having since finished her meal and crossed her arms, “I've had none warning of my impending fatality, but that is _always_ a possibility.”

“For the same number of nights that Jolee's been having his dreams, I've been having one, too.” Carth said, looking at Surik and deciding to exclude the 'personal nature' one with Morgana from the discussion, “It came in a different form but with part of the same warning. In the dream, I was reliving, reenacting and observing – don't ask me to explain that, I didn't understand that myself – the discussion we had about Revan following the Battle of Telos. I had finished recounting my history with Revan during the Jedi Civil War and had reached the part where I said, 'but whatever he set out to do, I don't think he succeeded' and a woman's voice broke into the conversation out of nowhere and said, 'Neither will she,' referring to you, 'nor will she survive to return if she goes after Revan alone.' You didn't hear it but we searched the room for broadcasting or listening devices. We never found any, not in the 13 recurrences since the first night – I know because we searched every time. All I know is that voice sounded like it was offering a commentary during a narration.”

10/15/2017 AD, 11:45 ANTE-MERIDIEM PDT ~ DESTINY'S PROPERTY, BLAINE, WA, USA ~ EARTH

It was late Sunday morning as Destiny sculpted dunes out of the delivered sand burying her driveway with yard tools while Leia, Destiny's 5'4” olive-complected younger paternal cousin who had elbow-length straight auburn hair and hazel eyes focused on clothing the _Star Wars_ Tatooine manikins bordering the driveway. Jeff, Destiny's 6'2” pale-complected elder cousin with eyebrow/upper-ear-length wavy blond-hair and hazel eyes, and Harrison Richard Barrett, Leia's 5'9” pale-complected husband with short, hair-gel-spike-styled, black-dyed hair and blue eyes, who went by Harry, each climbed up and down ladders placed beside trees working to hang-up the Wookiee manikins by their limbs. The Wookiee manikins were made of thickly padded plastic-pipe skeletons zipped inside Leia's custom Wookiee-suits of fake grizzly-bear fur with small suspension hooks, embedded between hand-and-foot-knuckle-digits and in the fur at their elbows and knees, rooted in their skeletons. “Looking great, Guys!” Destiny declared, pausing her task to admire their work.

“Thanks!” Jeff answered, sitting carefully on a branch using a narrow hammer to tap Wookiee right-hand knuckle hooks deeper into the branch past the bark. “I still say these are midget-Wookiees but I know Leia did her best with the only bulk bolts of fake brown fur she could find to create the suits. I was kinda thinking maybe we can claim these as adolescent Wookiees...” he added, moving on to the manikin's left hand.

“I'm more dubious of the fake kinrath and katarn packs we'll be setting up under the trees after lunch.” Harry interjected, “I mean, four-legged spiders with PVC skeletons and brush-bristled skins? Come on!”

“Hey!” Leia exclaimed after raising the hood of a hollow one-yard-tall, wire-frame Jawa mounted on a wood base rooted in six-inches of sand and dressed with a brownish-red Jawa robe costumes. The gray T-shirt, blue-jean clad woman planted her knuckles on her hips, staring at her husband indignantly as he hooked Wookiee hands, elbows, knees and feet into a trunk, “The Kinrath idea is a damn good one and taking the plastic bristles out of hair brushes and anchoring the bulbed-ends between contact-paper and the inner surface of a trash bag with each bristle poking out through it like tarantula-leg hair was pretty damn creative.”

“Thanks, Leia.” Destiny laughed, “If I didn't mind having strangers in my backyard, I would have added a Manaan, Ahto City raft to my swimming pool. But I don't need the liability of a kid falling in my pool.”

“Why stop there?” Harry snorted sarcastically, “Why not turn the grass area of the back yard into Dantooine, since out front you've identified the back yard as the reserved _Ebon Hawk_ landing field anyway?”

“The grass is too short.” Destiny retorted, ignoring his sarcasm, “Maybe I'll skip mowing the lawn for a year and do it for the Halloween of 2018 – and make my beach a Telos restoration zone while I'm at it.”

“Uh-oh! Now, see what you started, Harry?!” Jeff chuckled, climbing down a ladder while Harry rolled his eyes, before turning to face his cousin, “Destiny, I was thinking, why not use a chainsaw or a cutting-torch or something to damage one of the kinrath and make it look like it was killed by a lightsaber? It might add some authenticity since we can't authentically add the stupid computer from the Lower Shadowlands...”

“Hmm...” Destiny answered, glancing back down at the sandy driveway in thought while resuming her sculpting, “I don't know. That's not such a bad idea, but I don't wanna catch the rubber or paper on fire.”

“Just keep water nearby in case it does.” Jeff suggested, spreading his blue T-shirt-clad arms like a presenter, then adding, “And, in fact, if it does catch fire, briefly, it will add another element of authenticity...”

“So would making some animatronic kinrath capable of biting the trick-or-treaters or scaring all the stray dogs.” Harry added tongue-in-cheek, earning looks of amused annoyance from Destiny, Jeff and Leia.

“No, animatronic kinrath would be more in _Stargate SG-1_ territory.” Destiny countered, cocking her head and one eyebrow with a smirk, “We're close to Vancouver and all, but that's not what I'm going for.”

“Well, you've been into _Stargate SG-1_ too,” Harrison said, raising both eyebrows, “so why not do a Halloween theme for that sometime?” he suggested, “It doesn't have to be Star Wars all the time, does it?”

“I spent a decade in a crappy apartment saving up royalties so I could buy a place like this, free and clear.” Destiny reminded him, “This will only be our fourth Halloween here – I'm just getting started, Harry.”

“Speaking of your novel royalties,” Leia chimed in and Destiny glanced over at her as she approached on the driveway, “are you still having that weird round of Writer's block? Two weeks is forever for you.”

The author nodded with a grimace, “Yes, I am.” she sighed, “Last night made it the fourteenth damn night in a row. I hope I can shake it tonight because it's not just affecting my pro writing but my fan-fic, too.”

“You could always try writing a classic KoTOR porno?” Harry suggested obnoxiously, “I mean, seriously, how hard is it to write about Onasi as Lady Darth Revan's sex slave? That's gotta inspire something?”

Destiny glared at her cousin-in-law before glancing at his wife, “Leia?” she said, “Would you be kind enough to do me a favor and just beat the crap out of your husband while I get started on our lunch inside? Thanks!” Leaving the rake and hoe on the driveway she turned and walked up the long driveway to the driveway-terrace-soon-to-be-landing-pad and passed four broad garage-soon-to-be-hangar doors on her way to the laundry room. Behind the garage-doors was a contiguous space which regularly housed Destiny's 2014 hunter green Buick Enclave sport-utility vehicle, Jeff''s 2014 midnight blue Ford F-250 Super Duty Crew Cab pick-up truck, Leia and Harry's 2014 graphite gray Toyota Prius fuel hybrid sedan car and Leia's clothing, costumes and formals workshop. Destiny walked past the utility room's windows and entered the house through the utility room's exterior door and continued to the kitchen, fuming over Harry's suggestion that she treat the character Carth Onasi in such a demeaning way in her stories – she loved him too much to do that.


	4. May the Force Be With Us All...

065/32,503 TRILL-YIRT-AUREK, 10:13 GREK-SENTH-TRILL ~ ABOARD THE EBON HAWK ~ 43 PARSECS GALACTIC EAST OF THULE

“Halfway, 28 seconds left.” Carth announced from the pilot seat of the _Ebon Hawk_'s cockpit, Jolee sitting in the passenger seat behind his own but forward of the astrogation computer while Meetra Surik sat in the copilot seat to Carth's right. Astromech droid, Trill-3-Mern-4 stood monitoring the hyper-jump procedure at the astrogation computer while assassin-droid, Herf-Krill-47 monitored from a computer in the Main Hold. Carth had been surprised over 26 hours earlier when his request for 175 days of personal leave was granted by Grand Admiral Dodonna without resistance, a request notoriously difficult to get approved. It had been been the test Jolee and Surik had devised to check the feasibility of him joining Surik's search party. They had figured if it was the will of the Force for them to heed Jolee and Carth's dreams, then Grand Admiral Dodonna would readily grant his request and if not, she wouldn't. After securing her approval, Carth had packed his travel bags and written Dustil a letter, telling him he loved him and had to leave on an important trip.

By 08:00 on the sixty-fourth of 32,503, Carth, Surik, Jolee and the two droids had jumped to hyperspace bound for the Thule system. Overnight, Carth, Jolee and Surik shared a dream with the masters Jolee had previously described. They repeated everything they had said on the previous 14 nights before adding to it. Vandar said: 'You stand in Opportunity's doorway, your mission is before you.' Yoda said: 'When doing logically cannot save you, the illogical you must try.' and Relin said: 'The Force knows the end from the start but you retain free will.' then they had all blessed in unison, 'Trust in the Force. May the Force be with you.' When they had all awoken from it, they had discussed it, Jolee seeming relieved at the confirmation that they had done as they should have, Surik seeming troubled but unwilling to explain and Carth voicing his feeling that whatever mission the masters had sent them on had more to do with it than finding Revan. They had dropped out of hyperspace at Thule at 08:00 and had taken the preliminary astrocartography scans of the area.

According to Surik, her plan had been to more thoroughly chart the space surrounding the Stygian Caldera – that nebulous region of space from which threats to the Republic had been coming since the Jedi's Second Great Schism – in case there were any currently unknown planets that Revan may have been marooned on. Starting at 08:07 from Thule, they had been conducting three-minute cycles consisting of jumping to hyperspace heading galactic-eastward, dropping out 56.3 seconds later after a parsec – 3.26-light-years – with seconds to spare to use the sensor console, running a 60-second astrocartography scan and priming the hyperdrive for 60 seconds for the next jump 180 seconds after the first jump. They were now nearing the end of the jump-phase of the forty-third cycle which had begun at 10:13. “Dropping at 10:13:57.” he declared as they dropped out of hyperpace, making allowance for sub-seconds and declaring the next highest whole second. “Scanning at 10:14,” he announced, “Do you think last night was the last of the dreams?” he asked.

“I don't know.” Jolee sighed, shrugging when Carth had glanced over his shoulder at him, “But they didn't repeat stuff from before and seemed to be admonishing us all, so, maybe the last for a while, at least.”

“At least the Admiral and I finally got to see these other two masters whom we've never met.” Surik remarked, “But I was hoping for more information about this mortal danger I – now we – are heading into.”

“Priming at 10:15.” Carth said, “At least we know all the names of Jolee's visitors, I don't know who was talking to me.” he sighed and watched the chronometer until it reached 10:15:59. “Jump 44 at 10:16.”

The stars elongated until normal black space exploded into a tunnel of lengthwise colored noodle-like waves racing ahead of the ship until it caught up to their speed and passed it, the waves now racing backwards in the tunnel. At 37.75 seconds – 2.18 light-years – into the jump the waves reversed and raced ahead of the ship, swerving sideways dragging the ship with them. “What the hell?!” Carth exclaimed, “We're off course!”

“Admiral,” Surik said, eyeing the viewport nervously, “my information may be outdated but based on what I know about mass and gravity, I know of only one natural phenomenon in the known universe which can distort light waves like that: a black hole!” As if on cue, the proximity-alarms sounded, detecting a mass in their path in the exact direction in which the ship was being pulled. The ship was pulled out of hyperspace moments later, normal space revealing the accretion disc bordering the event horizon of a black hole straight ahead. They lurched forward in their seats, the instrument panel's edge catching Carth and Surik at the guts.

“Damn!” Carth spat, activating reverse engines and strapping himself into his seat to hold his aching lower gut up off the instrument panel's edge as Surik and Jolee did likewise and Trill-3 magnetized his feet to the deck. The hull creaked under the strain, the ship neither slowing nor reversing its advance towards the black hole and Carth was struck with certain fear he would die on a fool's errand and never see his son again.

“Herf-Krill, magnetize your feet to the deck if you haven't, yet!” Surik ordered, “Trill-3, divert all power to the reverse engines, artificial gravity and air recycler included!” she commanded the astromech droid.

“Wait, no!” Jolee exclaimed, “The hull's strained and that will tear this ship apart! We're caught! Reverse engines, the logical solution, can't save us! Try the illogical – like Yoda told us! Shut all systems down!” Carth and Surik glanced at Jolee, then at each other, Carth knowing all Jolee's earlier premises were accurate. It seemed like they were going to die either way, so they really lost nothing from trying Jolee's suggestion.

Surik twisted in her seat to aim her voice at the astromech droid, “Trill-3, cancel my previous order!” Surik ordered before looking at Carth with a resigned expression, “Power-down the entire ship, Admiral.” Though she was no longer a Jedi General, him technically outranking her, he obeyed her order and powered everything down. Pressure inside the ship continued to increase, squeezing their lungs until they passed out.

10/16/2017 AD, 02:13 AM PDT ~ DESTINY'S PROPERTY, BLAINE, WA, USA ~ EARTH

Concentrating intently on her desktop PC monitor screen, while wearing a gray sweatshirt, sweatpants, white socks and gray slippers, Destiny neared her 100th complete play-through of the PC version of the 2003-released video game _Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic_, not including games she never finished. She was in the final 60 seconds of her non-canon female-Revan version of Revan's final one-on-one battle with Darth Malak on the ancient Rakatan Star Forge space station factory in the Lehon system over the planet Rakata Prime. With her usual combination of lightsaber, Force-powers, med-packs, stimulants, grenades and running like hell, she eventually battled the infamous Sith Lord to the depletion of his health bar down to his knees. And after progressing through their epic conversation finale, Malak died before Lady Revan and others of her special strike-team escaped aboard the _Ebon Hawk_, triggering the final cinematic scenes showing the demise of the Star Forge, emergence of an intact _Ebon Hawk_ and the celebratory award ceremony.

Wearing a smirk, the gamer watched redeemed-Lady Revan and her  _Ebon Hawk_ crew – including soldier and pilot Carth Onasi, Rutian (blue) teenage Twi'lek Mission Vao, Zalbaar the Wookiee, redeemed-Bastila Shan, the astromech droid T3-M4, the Mandalorian human Canderous Ordo, the elderly self-exiled-Jedi Jolee Bindo and Revan's Sith-legacy assassin droid: HK-47 – awarded the Republic's Cross of Glory. The game ended at 02:16 and she sighed in satisfaction, using a computer mouse with her right hand to close the game application while hooking strands of her unbound hair behind her left ear with her left and opened an internet browser and browsed to the social-media website platform, Twitter and logged-in with her user name, '@DeadweightCopilot' to discover what local, national and international dramas she had missed since 11:45 PM over two and a half hours earlier. Under her display name, 'Destiny McCullough' she read the tweets from a reading audience offering overwhelmingly positive reviews of her most recently published novels.

After replying with tweets of gratitude to her readers, she navigated to the social-media video website platform, YouTube and logged-in with her email address to check the views and comments on her offering of uploaded videos. Beginning two years earlier, once she had achieved the gaming competency-level where she could play through a PC-version  _Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic_ game in a game-time of 24 hours or less she had started recording her play-throughs with video-recording software, building a variety of playlists of 24 one-hour-long videos. Destiny's uploaded 24-hour-play-through playlists which featured the canonical male-Revan included, 'Light-sided Sir Revan & Bastila Romance with All Side-quests,' 'Light-sided Sir Revan with All Side-quests without Bastila Romance,' 'Light-sided Sir Revan & Bastila Romance with Crew Side-quests Only' and 'Light-sided Sir Revan & Bastila Romance Excluding Non-essential Side-quests.' For non-canon female-Revan, the term 'Sir' was replaced with 'Lady' and 'Bastila' replaced with 'Carth'. 

Unlike the first  _Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic_ game, Destiny had taken about two years longer to play and upload her 24-video hour-long play-through videos for its sequel,  _Star Wars: Knights of the Republic II: The Sith Lords_ , having only completed recording her fiftieth play-through three Saturdays earlier. For that recording, she had played the main character as Meetra, the canonical female-Surik and Jedi exile, with Meetra identifying Revan as a male. Since she had only uploaded the videos 15 days earlier, she was pleased to find her newest playlist already had 150 views, a handful of appreciative comments, 44 likes, three dislikes and a couple of shares. Satisfied, she logged out of Youtube on her computer and left the office, passing through the south end of the foyer to reach the triangular den hallway south of the front doors and entering her den where her smartphone was and sitting on the pinewood black patent-leather futon opposite the 88-inch television which stood in the footprint of the west wall's wall-spanning pinewood media cabinet

On her phone Destiny accessed her Facebook account, another social media platform, where her eldest two nephews and eldest niece had an ongoing public dispute with that niece's mother – Destiny's sister, Elizabeth Samantha McCullough Welling who went by Liz. Her eldest daughter of the same name – who went by Beth to avert confusion – had turned 18 in August and moved into a California apartment with her two elder male cousins, 20-year old Alexander Nathaniel McCullough, or Alex, and 19-year-old Lawrence Michael McCullough, or Larry – the eldest sons of Destiny's eldest and older brothers, respectively – on the first day of October while Beth's parents had been away from home on a vacation celebrating their nineteenth wedding anniversary. Beth had decided on a move one week earlier when Liz had told her she had better have applied for Spring Semester admission to a college by the time they returned from vacation, Liz having been furious earlier after learning Beth had purposely missed an application deadline for Fall Semester admission.

Destiny didn't know what the 'or else' of her sister's ultimatum had been, but Liz had apparently forgotten American 18-year-olds all had a third option available: to move out from under their parents' authority altogether. Liz hadn't known that at Beth's high school graduation back in June, Alex and Larry had offered Beth an open invitation to move into their shared apartment out in Los Angeles County, California and to join their specialty music band, Clan McCullough. Beth had always loved music and songwriting – the latter interest particularly annoying her grandmother, and also her mother – but to a lesser degree. Destiny had thus far gone to great lengths to stay out of the Facebook dispute, which now included Alex, Larry, Beth, their respective parents and their grandmother Samantha Sophia Chatham – formerly McCullough – in a fierce debate about the parental philosophy of micromanaging the lives of adult offspring. Destiny sighed, opening her Messenger app to send Alex, Larry and Beth a group private message declaring her moral and financial support.

UNKNOWN DATE OR TIME ~ UNKNOWN SPECIFIC OR GENERAL LOCATION ~ UNKNOWN SYSTEM

“Carth, wake-up.” Jolee's voice woke Carth up and he opened his eyes to find himself still strapped to the pilot seat but the gravity force which had squeezed the breath from his lungs now gone, Jolee floating slightly near Carth's seat while he held on to the seat backrest. Carth looked out the viewport as the _Ebon Hawk_ soared over the surface of a narrowly-lit, lifeless-looking whitish-gray moon. A few hundred thousand kilometers beyond the single moon was a planet covered mostly with blue oceans scattered with green, gray and brown continents and white-covered regions at the antipodes perpendicular to the direction of rotation.

Carth stared in disbelief, then looked at Jolee, “Why aren't we dead?” he asked before frowning in alarm when he realized that the copilot seat was vacant, “And what happened to Surik?!” he asked urgently.

“Relax, she was the first to wake up.” Jolee assured him, “She's elsewhere on board checking on Herf-Krill – Trill-3 seems to be offline. You should power the ship back up to get emergency power back on.”

“Right.” the admiral replied, unstrapping himself from the seat and kneeling beside a floor-panel next to the instrument panel median. “Help hold me down while I work.” He opened the panel and grabbed the large switch before pulling, sliding it into the 'on' position. When nothing happened, he frowned and returned the switch to its 'off' position and attempted the procedure again, even waiting several seconds, but nothing happened. “Emergency power won't come on!” Carth growled in frustration and continued trying for a third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh time, his relief at not dying canceled by the new possibility of dying in a crash.

“Damn!” Jolee said, “Besides the fact we need emergency power to get an engine on, and need one engine for primary power and sub-light,” he said, “we also need one engine for a controlled landing!” In lieu of retorting to the ex-Jedi that he already knew that, Carth attempted the power-up procedure for an eighth and ninth time; he had completed a tenth attempt when Surik returned to the cockpit with a grim expression.

“The good news is, neither Trill-3 nor Herf-Krill have any visible damage.” Surik announced and Carth performed an eleventh attempt, “The bad news is, they won't come on either, no matter what I've tried.”

“No, the bad news is,” Carth retorted in agitation, glancing up from the floor, “I can't get emergency power on! We're gonna clear this moon – on a collision course with a planet without _any_ landing thrusters!” He stood up and studied the planet below through the viewport, deducing the white antipodes were polar caps. There was a large continent roughly between the southern pole and the equator and a somewhat smaller continent up to the northwest of it, roughly between the northern pole and equator, with coasts along the flanking oceans – the narrow to the east and the broad to the west. The east coast was lit with nearing sunlight as the central and west coast of the continent lingered in nighttime darkness. “We seem to be pointed at that northern continent, but at the vegetation heralds a breathable atmosphere. Where do you think this will hit?”

“Taking the planet's rotation and our oblique angle into account,” Jolee noted, “I think we'll either hit land along the west coast or the water of the huge ocean alongside it. Do we have gear to try jumping out?”

“Before I left Coruscant,” Surik said, staring at the planet, “Bao-Dur jokingly gifted me a sealed four-pack of parachutes, citing my tendency for getting shot-down or crashing. It looks like they'll be needed..”

“Sounds like the only choice we have.” Carth said nodding, “If we wanna retrieve this ship later – with as little water-damage as possible – we have to manually seal-off some compartments before we jump.”

“We can leave the droids locked in the main-hold with computer spikes.” Surik said, “If they somehow come back online later, they might be able to repair the ship – or contact somebody by comm who can.”

“I saw at least one artificial satellite before I woke Carth up, so this planet _is_ inhabited with _some_ technological capable species.” Jolee remarked, “If we're gonna waterproof this thing, we better do so quick.”

“I'll fetch the parachutes from the starboard dormitory and manually seal that blast door.” Surik told them, “The droids are still suctioned to the central computer in the main hold so don't worry about them. It's dark so you guys gotta use a lightsaber for light and seal doors on the ship except for the cockpit, cockpit hallway, main hold and ramp hallway – we'll use light from the viewport to don our vests and visually estimate our altitude.” Carth and Jolee nodded and they all went to work sealing off the port dormitory, port-dormitory hallway, cargo hold, engine room, med-bay, rear garage entry, med-bay-turret-hallway and front-garage entry. The men returned to the cockpit at the start of altitude turbulence where Surik was, having just opened the pack of parachute-vests, and picked out their vests. They all donned a vest as atmospheric turbulence intensified, and Carth switched his blaster to safety mode and zipped it inside his orange jacket before zipping the tunic-length vest over that and then buckling other straps around his shoulders, arms, waist and thighs.

Then the trio retreated, sealing the cockpit, communications room, cockpit hallway and main hold until they stood in the ramp hallway between the ramp and sealed garage door, Surik holding her lightsaber up to light their way. When the turbulence had decreased somewhat, Carth gradually twisted the pressure-release valve beside the manual ramp-hatch release, the procedure reducing both the pressure keeping the hatch closed and the chance of explosive decompression once opened. “If I survive, I'll try to find you guys.” Carth said, shivering in the cold as Surik shut off her lightsaber, “But if not – it's been an honor serving with you.”

“Same with you, Carth.” Jolee echoed in the dark, sounding just as cold, “No matter what happens, I know we did the right thing – I can't really explain it. Nevertheless, if I die, it was great serving with you.”

“Same here, Admiral and Jolee.” Surik echoed while Carth silently differed with the 'right' part. “May the Force be with us all.” Surik blessed them, “Let's go.” Carth released the ramp-hatch and they jumped.


	5. Wake Up And Breathe!

10/16/2017 AD, 03:06 AM PDT ~ DESTINY'S PROPERTY, BLAINE, WA USA ~ EARTH

Destiny had since returned to her office and had shut-down her desktop PC and now sat at her desk handwriting the last sentence of a journal entry while her pets both slept on a rug in front of the currently-lit fireplace. After applying the final period she closed the journal and returned it and its designated pen back to a lockable desk-drawer before standing up and picking up a spray-bottle of water, about to extinguish the fire in the fireplace before bed. She was winding counter-clockwise around the right end of her desk's front branch when a thunderous boom shook the house, rattling the windows, startling Destiny and waking up her pets, Obiwan responding with a growl and Yoda responding with agitated barking. “What in the hell was that?!” Destiny exclaimed to herself, leaving the spray-bottle on her desk and going into the gym to peer out the west windows, the rancorous ongoing social-media feud between the president of the United States of America and the dictator of North Korea over North Korea's illegal nuclear weapons program fresh in her mind.

As she passed fitness equipment on her way to the window-covered west wall of the gym, her dog already ahead of her, she noticed the skies above the northwestern Washington coast were filled with clouds that blocked out the stars and waning crescent moon – but no more than they had been earlier that evening – certainly nothing indicating a nuclear detonation. “Strange...” Destiny mused, staring skywards through the glass while Yoda stood beside her, wagging his tail excitedly. But, everything remained calm for the next few minutes and Destiny was turning around, about to return to her office when Yoda started barking again with his eyes fixed on something in the dark sky that she couldn't see herself. A person-size object plunged into the south half of her swimming pool – closer to the deep-end than the shallow end – at a high enough velocity to punch through the white vinyl-mesh swimming pool cover, a trailing attached parachute settling atop the tear and piling up there. “Oh no!” Destiny exclaimed with shock and dismay, her dog barking incessantly now.

Destiny smacked four electrical switches on the angled interior wall between the half-bathroom door and the northwest-facing exterior glass-door, one switch to automatically retract the pool cover, another to turn on the poolside-terrace lights, a third to turn on the in-pool lights and the fourth to turn on the gym lights. Then, she unlocked the exterior gym door and bolted down three steps as the cover retracted, figuring and hoping whoever had fallen in would get out once the pool cover wasn't trapping them in overhead. But the parachute migrated southward with the retracting cover, dragging whoever the ropes were tethered to with it, and she approached the pool's southeastern edge and peered into the water. A man wearing gray, red, orange and black lay motionless at the bottom of the deep-end and although she figured she was too late her gut-instinct told her to try and rescue him anyway. She hurriedly kicked off her slippers and dove into the cold pool in her sweat outfit and socks, ignoring the seemingly freezing temperatures and swimming to the bottom.

She reached the man and grabbed him by his right wrist, laboriously sitting him up and stringing his right arm across her shoulders and wrapping her left arm across his back and left side before struggling to her feet under his water-logged weight, aided only by mild buoyancy. Realizing he was too heavy for her to swim up and resurface while holding onto him, she settled for hiking northward toward the uphill slope leading to the shallow-end. They were at the base of the uphill slope when progress was frustrated by insufficient lengths of rope tethering the man's gray and red vest to the parachute still caught on the retracted cover up on the pool's southern edge. With her own oxygen waning, Destiny hurriedly located and undid every buckle, zipper and strap on the vest until it came loose from his orange jacket and she was able to pull it off his arms. As the vest floated up to the surface, she resumed her hike hauling the man with her, using her left knee to periodically nudge his right one up-and-forward to ease their uphill climb in spite of his waterlogged dead weight.

At the transition between the steep slope and the shallow half of the pool at just under five feet deep, Destiny was finally able to stand with her head above-water and take her own much needed breath as she hoisted the man's head above water. She looked at him, momentarily noticing his dark-but-not-black wet hair and moderate facial hair around his lips, chin and jawline, and tried to awaken him. “Wake-up!” she said. When he showed no sign of regaining consciousness, she smacked his cheeks but he remained unresponsive. Frustrated and afraid that the man was already dead, she hiked toward the pool steps as long as she could until the diminishing buoyancy left the man too heavy to support and she switched him onto his back and towed him to the steps by his armpits. Yoda barked at the poolside excitedly while she labored up the steps out of the pool. After laying the man flat on his back, she checked for his pulse or signs of respiration but found neither. “No!” she gasped, checking again and finding neither, shooing Yoda when he came trying to lick him.

Destiny eyed the unnatural bulge on the man's right hip inside his orange jacket when it suddenly dawned on her that the man was dressed suspiciously like a _Star Wars_ Carth-Onasi-cosplayer – complete with the orange jacket, black pants and knee-high military-style boots. His physical features also fit, the scant graying stands now visible in the lamp-light around his ears in addition to the soaked brown scalp and facial hair she had noticed earlier. Needing to simultaneously expel water from his lungs and compress his heart, she rolled him onto his belly positioning him until his face hung over water with his chest resting on the concrete-lip of the pool. Then she stacked her hands, palms-down, in the center of the lower-thoracic section of his back, rose up onto her knees, straightened her arms, locked her elbows and began to rhythmically compress his chest against the concrete-lip to expel water, wondering how stupid or suicidal a cosplayer had to be to stalk her address and skydive into her back yard at night. “Breathe, damn it! Wake up and breathe!” she urged.

UNKNOWN DATE, UNKNOWN TIME ~ UNKNOWN LOCATION ~ UNKNOWN PLANET

Carth regained consciousness with burning lungs and deep recurring pressure on his back, canine barking reaching his ears as disturbing gurgling sounds from his throat became a violent coughing and wheezing as outgoing water and carbon dioxide into the pool below his face competed with incoming air, the recurring pressure on his back ceasing once the coughing began. Finding himself lying on his belly from his mid-chest down and overhanging the pool from his mid-chest up, he pulled his elbows back and gripped the pool's paved lip before dizzily struggling up onto his hands and knees still coughing. After several seconds of coughing and panting, when his chest felt lighter and his breaths came easier, he sat down upright on the pavement and glanced around, blinking in the brightness of outdoor lights surrounding the pool. He noticed the thoroughly drenched dark-haired, dark-eyed woman wearing a soaked long-sleeved shirt, matching pants and white socks staring back at him while holding back the brown, somewhat fluffy, barking canine from him by its collar.

“Carth!” Jolee yelled from far away and he glanced over his shoulder to see the elder man crossing from an unlit grass field onto the pavement before reaching him, Surik arriving behind him. “Are you okay?!”

“Admiral,” Surik panted, “we lost track of you after you fell below the cloud-layer – your parachute didn't slow your fall enough as it should have. We saw the lights come on during our drop toward a beach.”

“I passed out, low on air, before falling past that cloud-layer.” Carth replied, looking up at Surik, “I was definitely unconscious when I fell in this pool.” He looked at the female stranger, “Did you pull me out?”

“I was in my house with my dog when you dropped into my swimming pool's deep-end through the pool cover.” the woman responded. “After I managed to haul you out of the pool, I checked you, twice, for a pulse and respiration and you had neither, but just in case I was wrong and you could still be revived I compressed your heart against the pool-lip anyway, face-down to purge water from your lungs simultaneously.”

Carth, Jolee and Surik stared at her before Jolee looked at Carth, “Hitting the cover and water and not the grass or pavement kept you in one piece,” then at the stranger, “but you'd still be dead if not for her.”

“Miss?” Carth addressed the woman after looking back at her, wondering why she had been narrowing her eyes, “Thank you for hauling me from your pool and reviving me in the absence of detectable vitals.”

“You can thank me,” she replied in an irritated tone, releasing the collar and rising to her feet, “by telling me why cos-players are stalking my address and skydiving into my back yard in the middle of the night.”

“Ma'am,” Jolee replied as Carth frowned, “I don't know what a cos-player is – but we were neither stalking this address nor aiming for your back yard. We jumped out of a crashing, non-responsive starship.”

“A starship?” the stranger snorted, crossing her arms and eyeing Jolee, “What ship? The _Ebon Hawk_?” she scoffed in amusement as her dog dashed over to Carth and reared up licking his face. “Yoda, heel!”

The dog obeyed, returning to its mistress's side, as Carth, Jolee and Surik exchanged glances, the name having caught their attention. “Yes to your question,” Surik replied, “and did you call your dog ' Yoda'?”

“My three-year-old Cockapoo behaves more like a human toddler than a 900-year-old Jedi Grand Master but yes, I named him Yoda.” the stranger replied as Carth stood up, before she glanced down while pointing to an illuminated, glass-covered lower-floor room at one side of the house, “Yoda, go inside.” The dog obeyed, running around the poolside and up three terrace steps before darting through a pet-size door in a bottom window near a glass door. The stranger glanced back at Carth and his shipmates, “This game you're playing would be funnier if it wasn't almost three-thirty in the morning and if someone hadn't almost died.”

“Ah, hell!” Jolee grumbled and looked at Carth and Surik, “My patience is thin and I see that vest and the parachute it's attached to over there,” he said, “I'm gonna inspect the thing while you set her straight.”

“We're not playing any game and nothing about this is amusing.” Surik insisted to the stranger as Jolee walked away, “The Admiral didn't target your estate and Jolee and I came here to find _him_ and regroup.”

“What's your name?” Carth asked, “So I can pay for damages later? If you let me empty my boots and direct us to a spaceport or someone who can help us locate, retrieve and repair our ship, we will leave.”

The stranger glared back at him, her jaw tense, her chin jutting out and her lips pressed into a tight line, before responding. “You can empty your boots in the grass.” she replied, pointing to the border between the pavement and the grassy yard, before turning her back and walking away counter-chronowise around the pool's edge to some soft-looking footwear on the poolside nearest to the house. Carth sighed, exchanging a frustrated glance with Surik before stalking to the edge of the pavement, sitting down, taking off a boot, emptying out the water, putting it back on and repeating the task with the other boot before standing up again.

Carth and Jolee regrouped with Surik about the same time, the elder man holding Carth's parachute and vest in his arms with part of the parachute draped over his shoulder and part of it in his hands. “Look at this.” Jolee said and Carth and Surik examined the part in his hands closer, noticing that machine-stitching holes were missing from what was otherwise a regular series of them along a seam between parachute panels. “It's not just this here – I found the same defect at two other seams also. Seeing this now, I'm wondering why you didn't fall faster than you did and why I – we – had never heard of Yoda before the dreams and here.”

“While Admiral was draining his boots I realized something strange,” Surik said, eyeing the stranger sideways from across the corner of the pool as she donned footwear over wet socks, “she never asked any of us our names and knew the name of the _Ebon Hawk_ enough to guess it. Before we move on, maybe we should find out what exactly she knows about us, thinks she knows about us – or really doesn't know at all.”

10/16/2017 AD, 03:30 AM PDT ~ DESTINY'S PROPERTY, BLAINE, WA USA ~ EARTH

Destiny sat on the pool chair rubbing her eyes after pulling her slippers back on over her socks, weighing what to do about her annoyingly authentic cos-playing stalkers when she felt herself being watched and opened her eyes to find the three had approached to within two yards and stood staring at her, Fake-Bindo carrying Fake-Onasi's parachute and vest in his arms. “Do you know who we are?” Fake-Onasi asked her.

She sighed and stood up, approaching until she was half a yard from them, “Fake-Onasi,” she replied looking at the man in the orange coat, “Fake-Bindo,” she added, looking at the dark-skinned, dark-eyed, white-browed elderly man, “and then you're the puzzle.” Destiny said, looking at the woman, “You could be a Bastila but she and Onasi are on a first-name basis while you keep calling Fake-Onasi – who's supposed to be on the _Sojourn_ – Admiral. Otherwise, you're role-playing the non-canon female version of Revan, or, and this possibility makes the least logical sense to me, you might be role-playing as Meetra Surik.” she said

The trio exchanged glances among themselves before looking at her again, “You got the first two correct – except the 'fake' parts – and I _am_ Meetra Surik.” the blue-eyed, short-brown-haired woman replied.

“Alright, look,” Destiny sighed irritably, looking sternly at all of them, “the Force must be with you three because I'm not in the mood to deal with the police right now which means I'm not in the mood to press charges for trespassing. It's cold, Fake-Onasi is soaked to the bone and dawn is about four hours away. Hiking anywhere in wet clothes in such temperatures will make him sick. Here's my offer: bring your parachutes up from the beach – I don't want junk on it – I'll dispose of them later. I can dry Fake-Onasi's clothes in the dryer while all of you get rest in my warm house until dawn, and after dawn I want you all off my property.”

Fake-Bindo and Fake-Surik exchanged looks Destiny couldn't read before glancing at Fake-Onasi, who had begun to shiver. “Your offer is generous.” Fake-Surik replied, “We accept it. What is your name?”

“Alright.” Destiny nodded at Fake-Surik ignoring her question, refusing to play their game, then looked at Fake-Bindo, “Sir, you can pas that parachute to him, we're heading in now,” she said nodding toward Fake-Onasi, “Once you bring the other parachutes up, leave 'em in the gym,” she said turning halfway to gesture at the gym, “then wait in that next room with the desk and a burning fireplace. You can sit on the futons but stay away from my desk and don't damage anything in the room. Once I get Fake-Surik's boyfriend situated with drying his clothes in the utility room, I'll come check on you and set up the sleeping arrangements.”

“Admiral Onasi is _not_ my boyfriend.” Fake-Surik answered swiftly while Fake-Bindo passed Fake-Onasi his vest and parachute. “As to your other instructions, understood. We'll collect our parachutes now.”

Destiny watched Fake-Bindo turn around and follow Fake-Surik as she walked away, then she glanced at the soaked, orange-coat-clad man holding his parachute. “Follow me.” Destiny said, turning around and leading him away from the poolside and up the three terrace steps to the exterior gym door, leading him inside and shutting the door as Yoda ran in from the office barking. “Just leave your parachute in a pile over in that corner on the floor,” she said gesturing to the southeast corner and simultaneously flipping down two of the wall switches near the half-bathroom, turning off the in-pool lights and recovering the pool before she turned to watch Fake-Onasi pile the parachute and vest on the floor in the assigned corner while Yoda continued barking and wagging his tail excitedly. “Just out of curiosity, Sir, how much do you weigh?” she asked.

The man turned around and looked at her, arching a brown eyebrow, “Between 92 and 93 kilograms at standard gravity.” he replied and she glanced away, converting to pounds and presuming him Canadian.

“No wonder you were so hard for me to tow through the pool,” she remarked, looking at him again, “you're about 1.5 times my weight – probably more than that with the water in your chest, gut and clothes.”

“Sorry...” he answered with raised eyebrows and the hint of an apologetic smirk, “I meant what I said. I appreciate you hauling me out of the pool and trying to revive me even though you thought I was dead.”

“You're welcome...” Destiny sighed, “Follow me.” She turned and led him through the office/gym hallway, across the foyer, through the foyer hallway and kitchen, down the next two hallways and into the utility room, closing the door behind them to keep Yoda out. She strolled over to the dryer and opened its door and glanced over at Fake-Onasi. When he seemed confused about what to do next, she cocked an eyebrow, “You're a little too big to fit in this thing...” she declared facetiously, patting the top of the dryer before pausing to study his orange jacket. “Your jacket's material is better quality than the average costume but looks like it might be subject to a shrinkage risk in a dryer – putting it in there is probably a bad idea. But I could always squeeze the water out of it and hang it on a hanger over the sink and keep it warm in here.” she reassured him as she looked back up at his face. “But any other apparel that you want to be dried you'll have to take off.” The man cocked an eyebrow incredulously and eyed the dryer as though it looked sub-standard to him.

“First off,” Fake-Onasi said, looking at her pointedly, “neither my jacket nor anything else I'm wearing is part of a costume, and secondly, you dry clothes with this thing?” he asked, dubiously eyeing the dryer.

“_Yes_, I dry clothes with this _thing_!” Destiny snapped irritably, “I dry bedroom, bathroom, window linens and lots of fabrics with it, too! It's a damn _dryer_, that's what it's made for! What were you expecting?!”

“Well, what do you usually wash clothes with?” Fake-Onasi asked. Destiny rolled her eyes and slapped the matching washer. “Oh...” he said, “Where I'm from, _one_ machine does _both_ for 1,000 years now.”

Bullshit. “Yeah?! Well, we're not in _Canada_ so this is just gonna have to be enough!” she snapped again, her patience reaching its limit. “Now, strip off whatever you want dried or catch a cold – your choice!”


	6. What Do You Mean From 'That' Galaxy?

UNKNOWN DATE, EARLY MORNING ~ UNKNOWN RESIDENCE, UNKNOWN LOCATION ~ UNKNOWN PLANET

“Canada?” Carth echoed, wrinkling his nose in confusion and frowning at her attitude, “I don't know that planet. I didn't mean to insult you or anything, I just was confused about why you were using antiques.” The woman crossed her arms, leaning back on one heel and glaring at him, refusing to answer but clearly waiting for him to act. “Okay, let's try something different, what's your name?” he pressed, but she didn't reply. He sighed in resignation and glanced away, standing between the sink and the slate-gray machine the stranger had indicated was for washing clothes, and unzipped his orange jacket and had finished shrugging out of it when the stranger to hold her hand out for it. That Telosian top pilot award jacket had been in his life for a long time and held sentimental value to him and given the woman's hostile attitude so far, he wasn't so sure he trusted her not to ruin it – but risked it after considering she had risked herself to haul a man 1.5 times her weight out from the bottom of a pool – and handed the jacket to her and she began wringing it out in the sink.

While she wrung and squeezed water out of the jacket, that water audibly draining down a sink drain, Carth withdrew his wallet from his pants pocket, grateful it was airtight and waterproof, and loosened the holster-belt – which held his blaster and a multifunctional utility knife – from the anchoring strap on the hip of his pants and laid the belt on the counter top not far from that sink. He crossed his arms, grabbing the front hem of his black long-sleeved shirt and pulling it up and off, clearing it over his head to find the woman had paused her task and was studying him with a suspiciously interested look, which ended abruptly as she took his shirt from his hands, turned it right-side-out and tossed it into the dryer. It suddenly occurred to him that she wore no rings on her fingers and had made no mention of having a mate of any kind in her house, and he wondered, as he hopped up onto the counter to sit while undoing his boots, if her attitude since reviving him – which hinted at her compassion – had more to do with a possible attraction to him than a daily disposition.

In front of the center window above the sink she had pulled a folding metal rack down from the ceiling by its chain handle, loaded his jacket onto a hanger and hung the hanger on one of the rack's bars by the time he got his first boot off. He was about to drop the boot onto the floor when the woman took it from him instead and drained all the water it had collected from his sock and pant-leg since last draining into the sink before hanging it upside-down by the foot on a part of the rack that he now realized was specifically for leather boots and other non-submersible footwear. Satisfied that she knew what she was doing, and wasn't out to ruin his things, he took off the other boot faster and passed it to her before shedding his long black socks. After she had hung up the other boot, the woman crossed from the sink to the right side of the dryer before he hopped down off the counter and added his socks to the dryer. He grabbed the hem of his white undershirt before finding her staring again, “If you're making me strip, can't you just tell me your name?” he pressed.

The woman scowled up at him, looking him in the eye, “You're gonna keep pretending you and your friends don't already know?!” she snapped, “You guys know who I am, or you wouldn't have come here!”

“I'm _not_ pretending, damn it!” he snapped right back, making her flinch but tiring of her treating him like a liar, “You seem to think you're famous enough to be stalked, so why won't you just state your name?!”

“Because I'm not playing your game!” she yelled and abruptly turned her back, stalking a meter and a half away and pulling off her soaked sweatshirt over her head, exposing a lacy black bra and lovely back.

“Whoa! Wait! Lady, what the _hell_ are you doing?!” Carth demanded, wondering if her attitude had been a prelude to another activity. She whirled around, revealing a shapely bust to match, and glared at him.

“I'm tired!” she snapped, “And I've gotta dry my clothes too and I'm tired of waiting on your ass!” She turned her back again, balancing against a counter to shed her slippers. He looked away as she grabbed the sweatpants' waistband and distracted himself, taking off his undershirt and adding it to the dryer as he tried not to think about the attractive woman stripping a short distance away. When had taken of his pants and was down to his white boxers, he turned and found her in her black bra and matching panties facing his direction while balancing against the counter and pulling off her white socks, her wet clothes piled on the counter.  
“How much were you wanting me to take off again?” Carth asked uncertainly, wondering if he should have assumed the more decent answer – although, he had begun entertaining other interesting possibilities.

Clutching her socks in her hands the woman straightened and studied him from head-to-toe while he consciously kept his eyes above her neck, “You can keep your boxers on,” she answered, “there's another way to dry those.” she explained but then stood motionless, her dark brown eyes studying his torso and her dark brown eyebrows creased with surprising concern. “Have you been diagnosed with Pee-tee-ess-dee?”

“I've never heard of it.” Carth replied frowning in curiosity and shaking his head, “What is it exactly?” he asked, wondering why her demeanor had suddenly changed, finding her more confusing by the minute.

“It means Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder.” she replied, crossing her arms, “It's a psychological disorder soldiers get after war, like in _Af-ganistan_ or _Ee-rock_. You have scars, as if you've fought some wars.”

“I've fought in wars and I've been to lots of places,” Carth answered, cocking his head in bewilderment, “but I've never heard of any sector, system or planet named _Af-ganistan_ or _Ee-rock_. Where are they?”

“Look,” the woman sighed irritably, “my cousin is a yoo-ess navy reservist now, but he used to be an active duty sailor deployed to _Af-ganistan_ for a decade, mainly working on computers – but long enough to see things that left him with Pee-tee-ess-dee once he got home. Some veterans recover from it within weeks like he did or months or years after they return, while others never recover, going on to commit suicide.”

10/16/2017 AD, 04:00 AM PDT ~ DESTINY'S PROPERTY, BLAINE, WA USA ~ EARTH

“I think I know what you mean but we call it something different where I'm from.” Fake-Onasi told Destiny, “We call it Traumatic-Stress-Aftershock, but I jumped with a parachute to _save_ my life, not end it.” Destiny rolled her eyes, still holding the socks she had taken off, and collected her dripping sweat outfit from the counter top and put them in the dryer. “But where are those planets Canada, Afghanistan and Iraq?” he asked. “I've nev-” She inhaled irritably, simultaneously standing up and whirling around to face him when her feet slipped on the slick tile she had forgotten to cover with a rug the previous afternoon, and was tumbling leftwards toward the counter space to the man's right when he snapped his right arm around her waist catching her against himself, thus saving her head from striking the counter and/or her left hip from hitting the floor. Her face ended up two inches away from Fake-Onasi's maturely-haired chest, close enough for her to smell his flesh, his wet boxers against her lower belly and his warm, muscular, scarred arm around her bare waist.

She hadn't been held that close by a man in over eight years, and even then she had been fully clothed, making her unprepared for the rush that her proximity to the handsome, infuriating stranger had triggered. “Are you alright?” Fake-Onasi asked, his concern sounding sincere, and she lifted her eyes to meet his before lowering them to his hair-framed lips, entertaining an idea of role-playing with him – only him – for a night.

“Uh, yeah.” she answered shakily, looking away and carefully standing upright when she was sure her feet were stable on the sandstone tile. “Thank you.” she said as he slowly dropped his arm from her waist.

“You're welcome.” Fake-Onasi replied as she opened a drawer to the right of where he stood against the sink counter, retrieving a dishtowel and dropping it on the floor, using her foot to flatten it on the floor. Once certain she could step away without slipping again she stalked to the utility room door and grabbed her long red, green and yellow McCullough-tartan terry-cloth bathrobe from a hook, putting it on and tying the belt at the waist. She returned to the dryer and shut the door, setting the heat to medium and drying time to 'sensor-dry' and starting the dryer and the man watched through the dryer window with apparent fascination. She shook her head and fetched a hairdryer from a cabinet drawer before plugging its cord into a power outlet above the counter-top backsplash and turning it on at a medium heat, aiming it Fake-Onasi's head as he watched her, catching his brown hair in the hot breeze. “It's not very sophisticated, but it will dry your boxers.” she said loudly, “You can always alternate between drying those and drying your hair, if you get too hot.”

“Um... before I do that,” he said, rejecting the hairdryer she held out to him, “may I use your refresher, and if so, could you show me where is is?” he asked with an awkward smile as she shut off the hairdryer.

“There's one right there,” she answered, pointing at the bathroom door, “and it's called a _restroom_ without a bathtub or shower and called a _bathroom_ with either or both.” she corrected. “_That's_ a restroom.”

“O-kay...” Fake-Onasi replied, looking baffled, “Thanks.” he said and went to the bathroom, fumbled with the light switch and closed the door. Destiny laid the hairdryer aside and ran to the office and leaned-in through the open east door. Fake-Bindo and Fake-Surik sat on the futon closest to the fireplace, the elderly man playing with and rubbing Yoda while the woman petted and scratched Obi-wan curled up on her lap.

The man and woman glanced up at her, “That first door you in the gym has a toilet if you need it.” They stared at her with the same look Fake-Onasi had and she rolled her eyes. “I'll be back...” she grumbled and closed the door, running back to the utility room. She found Fake-Onasi near the utility sink holding the waistband of his boxers out in front of him with the hairdryer aiming down into them until he looked up, saw her and swiftly relaxed the waistband into place at his lower waist. Destiny closed the door and approached until she was about a yard away, “Sir?” she addressed him loudly over the appliance motors as he watched her, “If you're really Carth Onasi,” she said, “what happened to Dustil?” He frowned, eyeing her in consternation and looking disturbed, “I never heard anything about Dustil after he left the Sith at Korriban Academy.”

“My son finished his academic studies on Citadel Station at Telos, joined the Telos Security Force Academy and is now a lieutenant in the Trill-Senth-Forn.” Carth replied – abbreviating using Aurebesh letters.

“How long has it been since Darth Nihilus and the _Ravager_ were destroyed at the Battle of Telos, thanks in no small part to you and your lady friend in my office?” she pressed, trying to shake him into reality.

He cocked his head and aimed his eyes up to the left in thought as if counting, then glanced at her again, “Assuming our black hole didn't warp time too much, three Standard months; or 105 days.” he replied.

Destiny stared at the lunatic in disbelief, “A black hole?!” she echoed incredulously, “What the hell does a black hole have to do with anything?!” she demanded, wondering if she had even heard him correctly.

“105 days after that Battle of Telos,” he replied, “Jolee, Surik and I were charting parsecs galactic eastward from the Thule system when our forty-fourth hyperspace tunnel was disrupted by a black hole mid-jump and we were pulled out of hyperspace ahead of the mass and couldn't escape the gravity. Based on dream admonitions from three dead Jedi masters – one of them having the name of your dog – Jolee urged me to power-down the _Ebon Hawk_, so I did, figuring we were dead anyway, and we all passed out when the intensifying gravity collapsed our lungs. The next thing I knew, Jolee was waking me up, he and Surik already awake, and there was no black hole in sight. The _Hawk_ was brushing past your moon on a clear collision course with your planet. I tried to restore emergency power to get an engine and primary power back on, but it wouldn't come on, and the two droids on-board hadn't powered back on either, remaining non-responsive. That's when we knew we had to jump for the best chances at surviving and retrieving the wreckage later.”

UNKNOWN DATE, MORNING ~ UNKNOWN RESIDENCE, UNKNOWN LOCATION ~ UNKNOWN PLANET

The woman glared at Carth as if he had insulted her before storming out of the room, slamming the door behind her, then he scowled while holding his boxers' waistband's front out from his waist again, aiming the hand-held dryer's wind into the boxers' front interior. He didn't understand how the stranger could be compassionate and respectful one minute and hostile the next. After a couple minutes he relaxed the waistband and held the waistband's back out from his back, holding the hand-held dryer behind his back and aiming its wind into his boxers' rear interior. He didn't understand the black hole situation himself but he couldn't deny that he and his shipmates had been caught in one, nor could he deny not being caught in it once he was woken up. He relaxed the waistband again and aimed the hot breeze at the hair in each of his armpits, gritting his teeth at the reality that he still didn't know the woman's name or official address where he could send his thank-you note and compensation for her pool cover and for the rescue, before turning off the hand-held dryer.

After laying the hand-held dryer aside on the counter Carth left the room, retracing his steps along the unlit route the stranger had led him on earlier, passing through a short hallway, a longer hallway, a kitchen, another short hallway, a conjoined gathering room and foyer and reaching the first hallway she had led him through from the gym. Seeing light under the bottom of a wood door right at the inner-end of the hallway and hearing voices, one of the voices sounding like Jolee's, Carth approached and opened it. Seated on one of two wood and leather bench-like couches facing Carth along a lengthwise wall farthest from him were Jolee and Surik, petting Yoda and a small cream-colored and brown feline while eyeing the homeowner attentively. She stood about a meter away from them, facing them with crossed arms and her robe-clad back towards Carth. On the door-half of the room, centered between that wood door's wall and the window-dominated wall which looked into the gym, was a large double-perpendicular-branch desk with electronic devices on it.

“Look,” Jolee said gruffly, still focused at the stranger “I know it sounds ridiculous – I might not have believed the story either, if I had heard it before today – but that doesn't make it any less true!” he insisted. Just then, Yoda, who had appeared to have been sleeping beside Jolee, got up on all-fours and jumped off the couch, bolting to the doorway where Carth stood, standing up on his hind-legs to paw at his lower thighs.

Surik swiftly covered her mouth at seeing his lack of dress as the stranger turned around. “You're supposed to be drying in the utility room.” the woman said arching an eyebrow and keeping her arms crossed.

“Yeah? And you're supposed to be believing us, not treating us like we're liars.” Carth retorted, continuing inside and closing the door when he saw the fireplace going, “When's that gonna happen?” he asked.

“You might as well finish the job...” she grumbled, motioning Carth closer to the fireplace whose glass doors were shut while heat came through upper and lower grates, “Let me break it down for you, okay?” she sighed, glancing between Carth, Jolee and Surik, “The _Star Wars_ galaxy, enthralling as it is, is _fictional_! That means all its history, future, events – every_thing_ and every _character_ originating from that galaxy! The Jedi Order, the Sith Order, Revan, Bastila, Carth, Jolee, Meetra, the droids, the _Ebon Hawk_, the _Deadweight_, the _Sojourn_, Telos, Dantooine, Coruscant, Yoda, Vandar and so on are all fictional! The Jedi Civil War, the Mandalorian Wars, the Exar Kun war – _all_ fictional, originating from the creative writer, George Lucas and any writers he authorized to add to the _Star Wars_ canon! You're all imitating science-_fiction_ characters!”

“Well then my scars must be fictional, too, because the majority of them I got in two of those wars!” Carth snapped, crossing his arms indignantly before frowning, “And what do you mean from 'that' galaxy?!”

“Alright! Fine!” she snapped, “My name is Destiny Mihkulluff. I'm a science-fiction author. I own this house. You are in the City of Blaine, the non-nation State of Washington, in the nation the United States of America on a planet called Earth which has a twenty-three-degree tilt and eight-billion humans. A minute is sixty seconds, an hour: sixty minutes, a day: twenty-four hours, a week: seven days, a month: twenty-eight to thirty-one days and a year: three-hundred-sixty-five days, excluding every fourth year which is three-hundred-sixty-six days. Today is the sixteenth day of the tenth month, or two-hundred-eighty-ninth day, of the year two-thousand-seventeen. We're on the Orion Arm of the Milky Way spiral galaxy. Our nearest neighboring galaxy is Andromeda – which collides with us in a billion something years. We have no subspace comms, no manned interstellar flight and no faster-than-light travel. In this country, the language is _Inglish_, which is verbally indistinguishable from Galactic Basic but graphically distinct since written-_Inglish_ isn't Aurebesh-based.”

The woman stalked over to the unoccupied couch and began tossing pillows aside on the carpeted floor while Carth stared at her in stunned silence, trying to absorb everything she had just told them. Then he looked at Jolee and Surik, all of them exchanging disturbed glances, and Jolee got up and approached the woman. Standing in front of the middle of that bench-like couch, she bent down and grabbed the front of the seat-frame and lifted it up before simultaneously backing up and pulling, the backrest reclining until the single-piece seat-cushion and backrest laid flat, the length between armrests being the length of what now looked like a mattress. “Excuse me,” Jolee began, “but did you say your _name_ is _Destiny_?” he asked – Carth realizing why – while the woman strolled over to the couch Surik sat on, her thumbs signaling for her to stand up.

“Yes, my name is Destiny.” she replied, tossing off pillows as Surik stood up and stepped aside. “When you leave later, use the utility room door.” She paused by the center of the couch looking at Surik. “The futons in here are just for the men since you aren't involved with either of them; I'll have you sleep on another futon in the next room over and you'll be given more blankets than them because the den has no fireplace.”


	7. A Dog Named 'Yoda'...

l0/16/2017 AD, 08:30 AM PDT ~ DESTINY'S PROPERTY, BLAINE, WA USA ~ EARTH

Destiny groaned in protest when her clock's alarm sounded three and a half hours after she had gone to sleep, reaching over to her right nightstand and smacking the snooze button. Just when she started to fall asleep, Yoda ran up to her face and started licking it. “Oh, alright, I'm up, I'm up!” she grumbled, sitting up and tousling the dog before petting Obiwan on the left side of her be. She forsook her bed and padded to the master bathroom in the pajamas she had changed into before going to sleep earlier that morning. After relieving her bladder and washing her hands, she opened her bedroom door and let her pets out as she exited the room before closing the door and going downstairs. Wondering if the cos-players had left after dawn an hour earlier like she had required, she peeked through a window of the den's double doors to verify Fake-Surik was decent but found the futon folded back up with all accent pillows back on and a stack of folded blankets at the end. She went to her office, entering the east door to find the other two futons in the same condition.

She also found, after glancing through the windows into the gym, that the three parachutes and their vests were no longer piled on the gym floor in the southeast corner. Destiny turned, about to check the utility room to make sure Fake-Onasi had collected all of his things, when she noticed a rectangular piece of off-white cloth about the size of a hand-towel lying on the front branch of her desk with singed edges and writing on it. She walked around the end of the branch and sat in in her chair, realizing the writing wasn't English but Galactic Basic, using Aurebesh characters. Smirking and rolling her eyes, she booted up her desktop PC to access the Aurebesh-Alphabet transliteration image file she kept on her hard drive and was about to open the file when an Associated Press headline on the news digest app on her desktop screen caught her attention: 'Predawn Tsunami Triggered in Southeast Alaska After Previously-Undetected Meteor Rattles Up Along West Coast and Hits Clarence Strait.' Resolving to read it after translating the cloth, she opened the image file.

The Galactic Basic text on singed cloth transliterated to: '_Destiny Mickulluff, I don't know if you can read this but you mentioned the Aurebesh to us, so I hope so. Thank you for saving me, drying my apparel, telling us about your world and letting us nap here. Your hospitality is appreciated and won't be forgotten and we apologize for any inconvenience that we caused you. Jolee and Surik were able to melt the edges of the tear in your pool-cover together and mend, it but there remains a depression and I apologize for that. Excluding this excised scrap of parachute cloth, we burned our parachutes and vests in the outdoor stone fireplace behind your kitchen and dumped the ashes in an outgoing ocean tide to relieve you from clean-up. Also, we are unsure why your property front looks like it looks, but Jolee asked me to relay to you that your artificial Wookiees, Katarn and Kinrath are smaller than those inhabiting Kashyyyk. May the Force be with you, Carth Onasi, Meetra Surik and Jolee Bindo.'_

Destiny stared at the cloth with the nagging feeling she had made a terrible mistake. The edge of the cloth scrap couldn't have been cut with a torch or else the entire cloth would have burned up, meaning it had been excised by a heated blade – a lightsaber? She hadn't asked the elderly man and younger woman to operate the lightsaber hilts they had worn on their belts nor the man she had saved to operate the blaster, all of which she had assumed were costume props. She bolted from her seat and ran outside to the swimming pool's edge, finding a large, shallow, elongated depression where the tear had been just hours earlier. How had they melted it back together? Plagued by regret, she returned to her desk to check out the article, which reported that a previously unknown meteor had appeared by the moon at 03:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time and had broken the sound barrier up along the West Coast from Central America to Canada before splashing down in Clarence Strait, Alaska at 02:16 AM Alaskan Daylight Time, 03:16 AM PDT causing a mild tsunami.

The article ended with official statements from the U.S. government agencies NORAD and NASA declaring that reports from amateur astronomers, science-fiction enthusiasts and conspiracy theorists claiming the meteor was actually a spacecraft and/or, more specifically, spacecraft from _Star Wars_ fame were completely and absurdly false and that any videos or images which depicted otherwise were doctored fabrications. Destiny's mouth felt like cotton as she browsed to Twitter and found the topic 'Meteor or Ship' trending in first place globally and looked at newly uploaded videos from people who regularly recorded the sky through their telescopes. The moon was in its waning crescent phase but someone in the northern Chile had gotten the clearest amateur pictures of the object passing an illuminated lunar sliver before hitting Earth's atmosphere. Knowing that Jeff would be in class at Western Washington University and that Harry would be at work by then, Destiny grabbed her charging smartphone from a shelf behind her desk and texted Leia to come down.

To Destiny's surprise, both Jeff and Leia arrived to her office, Jeff in his McCullough-plaid pajama pants and long-sleeved button-closure shirt, explaining that he hadn't felt like going to class after being woken up by the sonic-boom the meteor had generated – Leia apparently having already seen the news report and relayed it to Jeff. Destiny had her cousins sit on a futon while she explained what the object really was which had crashed in the waters near Alaska, telling them what had happened with her pool and the three people she had mistaken for cos-players and their stories about the black hole, passing Earth's moon and their nap in that very room. Her cousins were understandably dubious, until she showed them the parachute scrap note and the unprofessionally-mended tear in her pool-cover. Destiny insisted they needed to find that trio before something happened which forced them to use their advanced weapons in a public place – possibly in front of law enforcement or another government official. Destiny's cousins agreed, then they discussed what to do.

289/2017, MID-MORNING ~ FOSSIL-FUEL REFUELING STATION & SHOP ~ BLAINE, WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ~ EARTH

“Okay, folks,” a rotund male clerk at the sales counter declared after adding up Carth, Jolee and Surik's bagged-snack selections and pausing at the canned beverages, “I'm gonna need to see some eye-dee.” Surik had apparently woken from her nap first as the rising sun reached the den window, after which she had woken up Carth and Jiolee in the office. While Jolee and Surik had both been using their Force-powers to mend the swimming pool cover, Carth had been retrieving his dry clothing from the dryer in the utility room and getting dressed. Afterwards, the three of them had briefly explored the property and decided to burn the parachutes and vests in an outdoor fireplace behind the kitchen while Carth composed a note on a parachute cloth scrap with an ink instrument from a cup on Destiny's desk, then they had used the restrooms and left.

Carth frowned in confusion and dismay, exchanging glances with Jolee and Surik before glancing at the clerk. “What is eye-dee?” he asked quizzically and the clerk furrowed his gray eyebrows at them angrily.

“I need to see your identification.” the clerk declared and when Carth and his companions stared back, wondering why they needed identification to buy juice, the clerk said, “Eye-dee is required for Alcohol.”

Carth raised his eyebrows in surprise and glanced down at the white cans which had pictures of fruit on them, “Alcohol?” he echoed, “This isn't fruit juice? Okay, so where's the non-alcoholic stuff?” he asked.

“The refrigerated cases along the other two walls...” the clerk answered, gesturing to the back and left-hand side of the shop and Carth sighed, nodding apologetically before collecting the cans with Jolee and Surik. “I'll hold your snacks up here behind the counter, just get different drinks.” the clerk said and the trio turned and returned to the right-hand side of the shop to return the alcohol to their refrigerated cases before going to the back of the store to look at the non-alcohol. Carth was eyeing cans and bottles when he started to feel like he was being watched, but when he twisted at the waist to glance behind him, there were only a dark-blond-haired man and an auburn-haired woman in one of the non-refrigerated aisles and they were looking at the merchandise, not him. Shrugging, Carth looked back at the conservator-case noting that some of the bottles had different colored labels but nearly identical text on the labels. Someone walked into his right-side peripheral vision and Carth looked over to find the man and woman looking at him and his companions.

“Hello, Lady and Gentlemen,” the auburn-haired woman with hazel eyes greeted them politely as the man, also with hazel eyes, watched. The woman held horizontally a rectangular device with a screen facing Carth, “would you please read this out loud, Sir?” Carth eyed the screen, seeing the same text which was on all the store merchandise – which he couldn't read – and decided to guess while Jolee and Surik observed.

“Don't forget the beer and the meat sticks.” Carth guessed, and the man and woman frowned in amusement, exchanging private glances before the woman turned the screen toward herself, touched it for a few seconds and then turned the screen toward Carth again. This time, the screen clearly displayed Galactic Basic text and Carth planted his tongue in the side of his cheek, “May the Force be with you.” he read out loud.

“Yeah, that's what we thought.” the man beside that woman said smirking, “Listen, I'm Jeff and this is my sister, Leia – you're gonna wanna come with us. This place only accepts yoo-ess dollars for payment.”

“Come with you to where?” Surik asked warily while Carth turned to exchange glances with his companions, expecting they would detect any bad intentions that the man and woman might have towards them.

“We're here to pick up several liters of soda and then we're heading back to our place for brunch.” Jeff informed them, “You're more than welcome to eat with us and the food there is more filling than snacks.”

“I must admit, a meal sounds nice to me...” Jolee remarked, casting pointed glances at Carth and Surik, “How would we get to your place?” he asked, looking at Jeff while Carth sized up Jeff as a precaution.

“I've got a roomy pick-up truck that seats six, I can give you a ride.” Jeff replied with a friendly smile and that was when Carth realized something felt familiar about Jeff and Leia, although they were strangers.

“Alright, I suppose I wouldn't mind a decent meal...” Surik sighed, nodding her consent as Carth and Jolee did likewise. Then Jeff opened the conservator case and withdrew three two-liter bottles and closed the case before the siblings led them through the store towards the counter while Jeff admonished his sister not to forget 'Yoda's' dog treats and Carth exchanged suspicious glances with his shipmates as Leia split-off.

“You and Leia have a dog named 'Yoda'?” Jolee asked, following Jeff to the counter with Carth and Surik. Jeff didn't reply right away, addressing the clerk and pointing to their saved bags behind the counter.

“We'll pay for those.” Jeff told the clerk while setting the bottles on the counter as Leia returned with the dog treats, adding them to the counter. Jeff looked at Jolee, “And no, we don't – but our cousin does.”

“Thanks, we appreciate that.” Carth said gratefully, averting his eyes while clearing his throat, then glancing up to watch Jeff pay with green and white paper, “Just out of curiosity, what is your cousin's name?”

“Our cousin's name is Destiny.” Leia replied, confirming Carth and his shipmate's suspicions, “She rents a rental suite above her home's garage wing to us – and she's the one cooking brunch.” she volunteered.

“Oh...” Carth said uneasily, exchanging glances with his shipmates, “You know, it might not be such a good idea for us to ride with you to your place, after all... We were there earlier and she wanted us gone.”

“Hmm, really?” Leia echoed smirking mischievously, “Are you sure? Because she's the one who sent us out to search for you all and bring you back...” Carth exchanged bewildered glances with his shipmates.

“And besides,” Jeff added, accepting several bags from the clerk before turning to face them, “you've _gotta_ come with us now, because _we_ have your snacks.” he said, matching his sister's mischievous smirk.

10/16/2017 AD, 10:00 AM PDT ~ DESTINY'S PROPERTY, BLAINE, WA, USA ~ EARTH

Destiny worked in her kitchen investing in the hope that Jeff and Leia would be able to find the Republic Admiral Carth Onasi, Meetra Surik and Jolee Bindo and convince them to return to her house. She had her hair coiled into a tight bun on the crown of her head with a black, gold and red barrette. She wore a red apron over a short-sleeved blouse with a black background and golden and red leaf pattern, a red belt with gold-plated buckle, a knee-length black skirt, thigh-high black nylon stockings and black ankle-boots. Ever since her cousins had left and she had gotten dressed, she had been working on what she hoped would be a brunch of atonement and reconciliation. She had baked and toasted hamburger-bun size biscuits and made vegetable-loaded omelet patties, sausage patties and white gravy and had been deep-frying sweet and white potato fries, onion rings and zucchini when Leia had text-messaged her at nine-forty-eight, 'We found them' followed by another message, 'Five hungry people on the way.' after she had finished frying at nine-fifty-four.

Since then she had been standing at the kitchen island between the island and the gas range assembling one sandwich each on six plates with a biscuit-bun bottom, gravy, sausage patty, American cheese slice, omelet patty, more gravy and a biscuit-bun top. She had placed gravy cups on each plate and was distributing sweet potato and white potato fries, fried zucchini, onion rings, chopped celery and carrots on the plates when Yoda ran barking through the kitchen from the foyer hallway to the garage hallway, the interior garage door opening seconds later. “And the trick-or-treaters traditionally go from house to house expecting candy from every stop, but at this place we're less about ghosts, witches and scary characters and more about science-fiction and aliens.” Jeff said, apparently explaining the American version of Halloween to the non-Earth natives. Destiny swallowed nervously, having mentally rehearsed her apology continually while preparing the meal, and finished her task before shedding the apron just as her cousins and the guests entered the kitchen.

Destiny turned to face the group as they stopped to her distant right and also turned and looked at her, Carth's brown eyes, Meetra's blue eyes and Jolee's brown eyes watching and waiting. “Hello.” she said, waving with an awkward smile. “Welcome to Earth. Earlier this morning you met a horrible version of me that hadn't slept in 24-hours, was paranoid, skeptical and disrespectful and I apologize for that unequivocally.”

The trio exchanged glances before looking at her again. “I'll remember the version that pulled me from a pool, restarted my heart and got me breathing again;” Carth answered smiling, “accepted and forgiven.”

“I'll remember the version that brought us inside out of the cold, dried the Admiral's apparel and provided us all comfortable sleeping arrangements,” Meetra replied kindly, “apology accepted, you're forgiven.”

“I'll remember the version that forewent involving authorities, gave us time near a warm fire with furry companions and gave us vital information about your world,” Jolee replied gently, “accepted and forgiven.”

“You're too gracious, thank you.” Destiny said, smiling in appreciation and relief, then looked at her cousins. “Jeff, can you get the condiments, sodas, utensils and glasses on the table as Leia puts up the pets?”

“I'm on it.” Jeff replied, retrieving the pouch of dog treats from the Chevron Mart bag with the two-liter sodas, the bag which Yoda had been pawing at while they had been standing there, and passed it to Leia who in turn shook the pouch in front of Yoda's face and proceeded to lure him down the garage hallway while Jeff grabbed a basket of condiments from the refrigerator with one hand, still holding the bags in the other hand, before leaving them all at the table between the exterior door and the doorless wall shared with the dining room. “Oh, and I bought the snacks they were trying to buy, I figured they could always eat them later.”

“I must say though,” Jolee remarked, eyeing the plates on the island, “whatever you put on those plates there looks much better than whatever was in the bagged snack I'd picked out. What is it, if I may ask?”

“These are what I call breakfast burgers.” Destiny said, gesturing to the sandwiches, “Homemade biscuits sliced into buns and toasted, homemade turkey and cow-beef sausage patties, patty-molded omelets made with chicken eggs and minced vegetables, a cow's-milk-based cheese-blend of colby and cheddar and a common breakfast gravy made from water, flour, cow's-milk and cow's milk based butter. Beside them are various common lunch side dishes including white potato fries, red sweet potato fries, fried onion rings and fried zucchini. With them are raw pieces of chopped celery, carrots and cups of more gravy for dipping.”

“It looks and sounds more than ample,” Meetra said, nodding as Leia passed through the kitchen heading for the foyer, “Jeff did mention most of your nation's dairy products and all its beef come from cows.”

“That's correct,” Destiny nodded, “and when edible eggs are mentioned, it usually refers to chicken eggs; we also farm turkeys, sheep, pigs and fish for food. The most bantha-like beasts on Earth are buffalo.”

“Speaking of beasts,” Jolee said, clearing his throat and arching a bushy eyebrow, “Jeff explained what you've done to your front yard,” Destiny laughed, “and I think Jeff's adolescence idea is your best save.”

“Is that so?” she echoed, eyeing Jeff as he fetched napkin-wrapped utensils from a drawer north of the built-in desk and Leia carried Obi-wan through the kitchen from the foyer on her way to the utility room.

“You know, Destiny,” Jeff chuckled, stalking to the table and putting the utensils in a central pile on it, “you've gotta admit, it's kinda funny. The sign out front directs the _Ebon Hawk_ to your back yard and then these three parachute into that yard less than 24 hours later and your reason for not decorating your pool with a Manaan, Ahto City was that you didn't want anybody falling in and then – _Carth_ freakin' _Onasi_ falls in.”

“I agree,” Leia snorted, entering the kitchen from the hallway after putting Yoda and Obi-wan both in the utility room, “it's the best evidence so far that God – also known as the Force – has a sense of humor.”


	8. Happy Forty-Fourth Birthday...

289/2017, LATE MORNING ~ DESTINY'S PROPERTY, BLAINE, WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ~ EARTH

Standing in Destiny's kitchen having already studied her black, red and gold outfit which hugged her fit figure, and realizing he should stop when his thoughts drifted to her black lace underwear, Carth diverted his attention to the conversation between her and her cousins. “Yeah?” Destiny echoed, “Well, I'm generally not one to challenge the Force but I didn't find it funny pulling a man from a pool without breath or a pulse.”

“My understanding from Jolee is that he would have suffered catastrophic skeletal damage if he had hit ground or concrete,” Jeff answered back, “instead of watery lungs and a little bruising from hitting vinyl.”

“In other words, Miss McCullough, there wouldn't have been enough of the Admiral left to save,” Surik interjected, “I suspect you know that even if you're reluctant to admit it. That pool was the best option.”

“For purposes of the Force that I have yet to fully comprehend,” Jolee prefaced thoughtfully, “I believe that we arrived in the right place, at the right time at _precisely_ where the Force already wanted us to be.”

“Alright, your points are taken,” Destiny conceded, picking up a plate of food from the island counter and holding it out to Jolee, “and all of you, please, call me Destiny. Go ahead and take a seat at the table.”

“Thank you very much, Destiny.” the elderly former Jedi replied, accepting the plate, “Please, call me Jolee.” As he walked away she nodded and gave the next plate to Surik and Surik echoed Jolee's request.

Destiny glanced at her cousins, “You two live here, you can grab your plates yourselves.” she told them chuckling, Jeff responding to her with an eye-roll and Leia sticking out her tongue while each collected a respective plate from the island counter. As they headed for the table, Destiny picked up another plate and held it out to Carth – but didn't let go when he had hold of it – and he looked up at her quizzically. “Earlier in the utility room,” she said quietly, with an uncomfortable look on her face, as he guessed what was coming, “inappropriate things occurred due to my foolishness. I sincerely apologize for any discomfort I caused you.”

Knowing she was serious, Carth forced himself to hide the amusement that his memory of the events had triggered, “If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have been alive to feel discomfort...” he said, “I forgive you.”

“Thank you, Admiral Onasi.” she replied appreciatively, her voice and eyes warm as she smiled, releasing the plate to him, “If I'd been thinking, I'd have challenged you all to demonstrate using your weapons.”

“Please, call me Carth,” he requested as she picked up the last plate, then walked beside her as she headed for the table, “and why would demonstrating our weapons have made such a difference?” he asked.

“Because on Earth,” she replied, passing behind Leia's chair on the lengthwise side of the table nearest the exterior door, “while we have surgical laser tools,” she passed an empty chair beside Leia's then was reaching for the backrest of last chair on the same side when Carth quickly grabbed it first, pulling it out for her and drawing her surprised glance, “Thanks...” she said and sat down before he continued to the chair at the end, with Destiny across his left table corner from him and Jolee across the right table corner from him, “Earth has laser tools but no lightsabers and Earth's pistol weaponry fires metal and rubber bullets or water.”

“So you've never seen something like this in-person before?” Surik asked pulling her lightsaber off her belt as Jolee passed one of the three two-liter bottles of a dark carbonated beverage from the fuel station to Carth. Surik lifted the lightsaber grip above her and Jolee's heads – an empty chair separating her and Jolee – held it horizontally and ignited the double-bladed weapon, the glowing greenish-blue blades expanding in opposite directions from the single center-grip. “Because I chose not to rejoin the Jedi Order, I changed my color from blue to cyan blue.” Carth smirked slightly, glancing at the Earthians as he poured his beverage.

“Wow! It's beautiful!” Leia said staring at the lightsaber with expressions of fascination and awe matching her brother and cousin's while Carth slid the bottle towards Destiny's plate and tried some of his fries.

Surik and Jolee smiled in obvious amusement at their reactions to seeing a lightsaber for the first time and Destiny glanced between them, “Which of you two clipped the cloth out of the parachute?” she asked.

“That was me.” Jolee replied, pulling his own lightsaber off his belt, holding it vertically over his plate and igniting a single green blade aimed at the ceiling, Destiny pouring her drink as Carth tried the sandwich.

“The U.S. military industrial complex and scientific community alike would likely kill to get their hands on those if they knew they were here.” Jeff said from the table end by Leia and Surik, opposite of Carth's.

“The lightsabers aren't all they would be after,” Destiny replied, sliding the bottle to the table's center and dipping two potato-fries, a white and a sweet, into the gravy cup, “a hyperspace-capable, laser-turret-equipped, astrogation-computer-equipped _Dynamic_-class freighter with two droids on board crashed in Alaskan waters, and even though Carth didn't specify, I'm willing to bet that they're probably _Revan's_ droids.”

“Oh, damn, that's right!” Leia gasped while Carth studied Destiny closely wondering what she knew about Revan, “_Aitch-Cay-_47 and _Tee-_3_-Em-_4, everybody in Earth technology sectors would be drooling!”

“Leia, they use the aurebesh, not our alphabet, remember?” Destiny replied, “They probably know them as _Herf-Krill-47_ and _Trill-3-Mern-4_.” She took a large bite of her sandwich, chewing hungrily before looking at Carth as she finished chewing and swallowed, “Is the food okay? You can add salt or something if it needs it. By the way, my last name transliterates to _Mern-cresh-cresh-usk-leth-leth-osk-usk-grek-herf_.”

“The food's amazing,” Carth answered, “ and I apologize for misspelling your name.” he added with a sheepish smile, “I didn't know – I had never heard the name before nor seen it spelled in either language.”

“Don't feel too bad about it,” Destiny answered, “even among the Gaelic-speaking populations the spelling of it has evolved and diverged. But my transliteration is based on the spelling on my birth certificate.”

10/16/2017 AD, 10:24 AM PDT ~ DESTINY'S PROPERTY, BLAINE, WA, USA ~ EARTH

“Speaking of birth certificates,” Jeff said after swallowing a drink of his soda as Leia, Destiny and the extragalactic guests looked at him, “I'm gonna have to collect some personal information from you three so I can forge both your Earth birth certificates and Washington State Identification cards. But I'm not gonna risk forging Social Security cards, immigration papers or passports, so you won't be able open bank or credit card – which is a type of debt here – or loan accounts – nor will you be able to cross international borders but the forgeries should help you function in local society with exceptions, like dealing with law enforcement.”

“He's gonna try to make the data as accurate as possible, places of birth not withstanding,” Destiny added, glancing around at Meetra, Jolee and Carth, “which means we've gotta convert all Galactic Standard calendar dates into Gregorian calendar dates. In civilian life, we use a twelve-hour clock with twelve-midnight to twelve-noon being considered the morning, twelve-noon to six being considered afternoon and then six to twelve-midnight being considered evening. But to avoid confusion in this conversation, we'll use the 24-hour clock, nicknamed military time here. Some Earthians who glimpsed you in the sky recognized you were a ship while official agencies are reporting that you were a meteor – but all agree that you showed up near our moon at Three in the Pacific Time zone currently observing Daylight Savings and at eleven in the Greenwich Mean Time zone, aligned with Earth's Prime Meridian at zero degrees longitude, also observing Daylight Savings. We will be switching from Pacific Daylight Time back to Pacific Standard Time in 19 days at mid fall.”

“Ah, very interesting.” Carth mused as he took a drink of his soda while watching her, “Just out of curiosity, what latitude and longitude are we all at right now?” he asked before eating some fries while waiting.

“About 48.9523 degrees North latitude and -122.8203 degrees West longitude.” she replied. “Anyways, you told me you were charting parsecs east of Thule when your 44th hyperspace tunnel was disrupted mid-jump by the black hole. What was the Galactic Standard date and time of the start of that jump, if you know it?” Destiny asked, leaving her chair to disconnect her laptop PC's charging cable on the built-in desk.

“Zero-six-five-slash-three-two-comma-five-zero-three at ten-colon-sixteen on a 24-hour chrono.” he replied. “37.75 seconds of the 56.3-second jump was fine.” She set her laptop between their two plates.

“According to what you all told me,” Destiny said, booting up her laptop, “you three passed out at the black hole and woke-up flying by our moon. How long did it feel to each of you that you had been out?”

“Well, my bladder and prostate usually team up to bother me on a pretty regular schedule and they hadn't done so yet.” Jolee answered, “To me, it felt like longer than 15 minutes but shorter than 45.” he said.

“That's actually about what it felt like to me, too.” Meetra replied nodding, dipping celery in her gravy before taking a bite. Destiny quickly changed out the desktop-background of Carth Onasi on her laptop.

“That seems pretty reasonable to me, too.” Carth answered, “When Jolee woke me up, I didn't feel like I had been sleeping for long, maybe as long as a lunchtime nap at my desk – but certainly not an hour.”

“Then for timekeeping and forgery purposes,” Destiny said, opening a new spreadsheet document on her laptop and then looking at Jeff, “should we establish that 11:00 Galactic Standard Time is synchronous with 11:00 Greenwich Mean Time – at least during Daylight Savings – concurrent with our 03:00 Pacific Daylight Time?” she suggested. “There's no certainty in this situation but 44 minutes or less fits the description.”

“Observantly, chronologically and anecdotally,” Jeff sighed, “it's the best we can do now unless and until the Force or whoever got them through that black hole decides to give us a hint to fine-tune our guess.”

“You don't have 65 days in any of your months,” Destiny said, glancing at Carth, “since 18 days of your year land outside standard months, you only record the day of the year and the year in official format?”

“That's correct.” Carth replied. On the worksheet of the new spreadsheet document, she named the columns, labeling spreadsheet-cell A1 'GSY Ages', B1 'Reference Dates & Names', C1 'GSD', D1 'GSY', E1 'Day Ages Today', F1 'Day Ages at Next GS-B-Day, G1 'Next GS-E-B-day and H1 'E-DOB'. She formatted columns A, C, D, E and F for numbers and columns B, G and H for dates before looking at the trio.

“From eldest to youngest,” Destiny said, “please declare and spell your first, middle if you have it and last name then state in Galactic Standard your date, time – and for our own benefit – your planet of birth.”

“Jolee _Jenth-osk-leth-esk-esk_ Beni _Besh-esk-nern-isk_ Bindo _Besh-isk-nern-dorn-osk_; 274/32,421; 11:00, Corellia.” Jolee replied and Destiny entered the data – adding 'Birth Planet' to spreadsheet-cell I1.

“Carth _Cresh-aurek-resh-trill-herf_ Thani _Trill-herf-aurek-nern-isk_ Onasi _Osk-nern-aurek-senth-isk_; 186/32,459; 11:00; Telos.” Carth replied and she raised her eyebrows in curiosity and inputted the data.

“Meetra _Mern-esk-esk-trill-resh-aurek_ Nomi _Nern-osk-mern-isk_ Surik _Senth-usk-resh-isk-krill_; 098/32,468; 11:00; Dantooine.” Meetra said. Destiny entered the data and entered, '10/16/2017' in B3 and formula, '(B3-64)' in B2 and got '08/13/2017' before typing '001' in C2, '065' in C3 and '32503' in D2 and D3. She typed formulas, '(368*(D3-D4)+(C3-C4))/368' in A4, '(368*(D3-D5)+(C3-C5))/368' in A5 and '(368*(D3-D4)+(C3-C4))/368' in A6 to get '81.43206522', '43.67119565' and '34.91032609', respectively. She typed formulas, '(368*A4)' into E4, '(368*A5)' in E5 and '(368*A6)' in E6 to get '29,967', '16,071' and '12,847' respectively, then, '(368*82)' into F4, '(368*44)' in F5 and '(368*35)' in F6 to get, '30,176', '16,192' and '12,880', respectively. She typed formulas, '(B3+(F4-E4))' into G4, '(B3+(F5-E5))' in G5 and '(B3+(F6-E6))' in G6 to get, '05/13/2018', '02/14/2018' and '11/18/2017', respectively, then, (G4-F4) into H4, (G5-F5) in H5 and (G6-F6) in H6 and got, '09/30/1935', '10/16/1973' and '08/14/1982', respectively.

289/2017, LATE MORNING ~ DESTINY'S PROPERTY, BLAINE, WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ~ EARTH

Jolee and Surik seemed to share Carth's curiosity and fascination as Destiny's fingers rapidly depressed the buttons on the input console of her folding device, various expressions ranging from bewilderment to amusement crossing her face as she concentrated on the screen of the upright portion of her device. “If I may ask,” Surik said, glancing at Jeff and Leia, “what type of a device is that that Destiny is using?” she asked.

“That device is a laptop – one-word – personal computer, which we abbreviate _Pee-See_.” Jeff replied, “it's in a category between a datapad-like tablet _Pee-See_ and a larger desktop – one word –_ Pee-See.”_

“Meetra,” Destiny said, eyeing them after she had stopped typing, “happy belated thirty-fifth birthday by 63 days. Jolee, happy belated eighty-second birthday by 16 days. Carth, happy forty-fourth birthday.”

“Whoa!” Jeff exclaimed with a chuckle, while Leia burst out laughing, as the difference in Destiny's last statement registered in Carth's awareness, “Are you saying  _today_ is Carth's forty-fourth Earth-birthday?”

“Jolee,” Destiny said, “you're 29,967 days old, you'll be 30,176 on your next birthday on _Mern-aurek-yirt_ May Thirteen, Twenty-eighteen or zero-five-slash-thirteen-slash-twenty-eighteen; your date of birth was on _Senth-esk-peth-trill-esk-mern-besh-esk-resh_ September Thirty, Nineteen-thirty-five or zero-nine-slash-thirty-slash-nineteen-thirty-five. Carth, you're 16,071 days old; you'll be 16,192 on your next birthday on _Forn-esk-besh-resh-usk-aurek-resh-yirt_ February Fourteen, Twenty-eighteen, or zero-two-slash-fourteen-slash-twenty-eighteen; your birth date occurred on _Osk-cresh-trill-osk-besh-esk-resh_ October Sixteen, Nineteen-seventy-three or ten-slash-sixteen-slash-nineteen-seventy-three. Meetra, you're 12,847 days old and you'll be 12,880 on your next birthday on Nern-osk-vev-esk-mern-besh-esk-resh November Eighteen, Twenty-seventeen or eleven-slash-eighteen-slash-twenty-seventeen; your birth was on _Aurek-usk-grek-usk-senth-trill_ August Fourteen, Nineteen-eighty-two or zero-eight-slash-fourteen-slash-nineteen-eighty-two.”

“Meetra's native thirty-fifth birthday is on my native thirty-fourth this year?” Jeff echoed with a laugh, “Seriously?!” Destiny nodded with an amused smirk, and Jeff glanced at Carth, “Happy birthday, Admiral.”

Carth rolled his eyes with amused exasperation, “Thanks,” he sighed, “and you don't have to call me Admiral...” he reminded them, “I know Surik still does, but I think that's because she used to be a general.”

“I realize I'm not a lieutenant in  _your_ navy,” Jeff retorted with a grin, “but I am in my own so if I'm addressing you as 'Admiral' at any time you should take it as a compliment without assuming I'll  _always_ do it.”

“So his native birthday is on Valentine's Day,” Leia laughed as Carth realized Jeff was the veteran Destiny had mentioned, “ _and_ his Earth birthday is their black hole-surfing day? You owe him a birthday cake.”

“I don't know what Valentine's Day is but no cake is necessary, my life is gift enough.” Carth told Leia, then looked at Destiny, “I'm curious about where all your guys' birth dates land on our calender, though.”

“First of all, Leia,,” Destiny said, “he doesn't need to know what Valentine's day is and except for their _eye-dees_ and birth certificates, there's no need to age them beyond their native years; Carth's native age, rounded to two decimal places, is 43-point-67 years old.” She looked at Carth, “And I'm curious, too. I'll convert our dates but it might take longer since the formulas used differ with the leap-years to contend with.”

Carth nodded in acknowledgment, watching Destiny resume using her laptop _Pee-See_ and Leia turned to Jolee, “Jolee,” Leia said, “you were born on Corellia? Our canon never cited a date or place for you.”

“Yes, I was.” Jolee answered as Carth turned his attention to the conversation, “I never met my parents because they died together in a shuttle accident before I was one year old. I was given to an orphanage operated by a Jedi-based charity and my Force-sensitivity manifested when I was a toddler during an orphanage visit by Master Vandar Tokare. He took me in and raised me on Dantooine and remained my primary master until I reached twelve years old ten years after he had discovered me, and got me used to training primarily with other masters to reduce an emotional attachment, but it still hit me hard when he died on Katarr.”

“Carth,” Jeff said, who had since pulled a device nearly identical to the one Leia had held up at the fuel station from his pocket which, “how long was jump 44 supposed to last again and when did it go awry?” “We were jumping a parsec at a time.” Carth replied, “That jump, like the first 43, was supposed to have lasted for 56.3 seconds. It was normal for 37.75 seconds before the tunnel exhibited intense distress.”

Jeff touched his screen for a few seconds then his eyebrows hiked in surprise, “Rounded to two decimal places,” he said, “43.67 of your jumps were normal, oddly matching your age entering that black hole.”

“I finished,” Destiny said, glancing away from her device, “but before I declare all our dates, I wanna know Dustil, Revan, Bastila, Vaner and Vandar's birth dates and Vandar's death date for later calculation.”

“Dustil 098/32,481,” Carth replied, “Revan 364/32,459, Bastila 098/32,478, Vaner 364/32,499 and Vandar died on his nine-hundredth birthday on 050/32,501 – putting his birth on 050/31,601.” he added.

Destiny tapped console keys for a couple minutes before speaking again. “Jeff's birth on November Eighteen, Nineteen-eighty-three was 191/32,469 on your calendar and his thirty-fourth birthday is February Nineteen, Twenty-eighteen or zero-two-slash-nineteen-slash-twenty-eighteen. Leia's birth on _Dorn-esk-cresh-esk-mern-besh-esk-resh_ December Ten, Nineteen-eighty-six or twelve-slash-ten-slash-nineteen-eighty-six was on 205/32,472 and her thirty-first birthday is on _Mern-aurek-resh-cresh-herf_ March Five, Twenty-eighteen. My birth,on _Jenth-usk-leth-yirt _July Eighteen, Nineteen-eighty-four or zero-seven-slash-eighteen-slash-nineteen-eighty-four was on 066/32,470,” Carth covered his mouth tightly to stifle a laugh, “my thirty-third birthday is on October Seventeen, Twenty-seventeen or ten-slash-seventeen-slash-twenty-seventeen.”


	9. Would You Like To Translate Something Else?

10/16/2017 AD, 10:48 AM, PDT ~ DESTINY'S PROPERTY, BLAINE, WA, USA ~ EARTH

“This is getting weird.” Jeff declared eyeing the trio after finishing his meal, Destiny agreeing wholeheartedly with that assessment. “I'm willing to accept the possibility that our  _Star Wars_ canon has gotten some things wrong because number one, you're here and number two, you've heard the name Yoda when he won't even be born for another 3,054 Galactic Standard years. But even if minor details were off, I find it hard to understand why you three were ever charting parsecs near Thule. The last time Jolee Bindo was mentioned in our canon, it was by Mical commenting to Meetra about a book of his adventures during her quest to find Masters Vrook, Kavar and Zez-Kai Ell, leaving the impression he had died at some time between the end of the Jedi Civil War and her quest. Republic naval Admiral Carth Onasi was supposed to be on the  _Sojourn_ keeping the Republic and its fleet strong as Revan had wished before leaving. Meetra Surik was supposed to have restarted the Jedi Order before retracing Revan's steps to find him. Thule was  _never_ in the equation.”

Destiny watched the trio exchange glances until they looked at her and and her cousins, “You translated that note Carth wrote,” Jolee said, “would you like to translate something else?” They nodded curiously. “15 nights ago, three Jedi masters visited me in a dream. One was Vandar and I learned later that a Master Relin Druur had died in a faulty-hyper jump by the Sith dreadnought _Harbinger_ at the Battle of Phaegon III with Sith forces over a millennium ago. The other Jedi master, of the same species as Vandar, was Yoda – whom you say hasn't been born, yet. They proceeded to give me a series of messages, every master making a statement per night, repeating it all on the next night before adding-on. Last night on the ship, Meetra, Carth and I shared the same dream. I saved a page out of my dream journal before we parachuted from the ship.”

He took folded paper from his pocket, unfolding and passing it to Destiny; she accepted it opening an aurebesh on her laptop. “Dream 1:” she read out loud, “Relin: 'Death, yet the Force. Chaos, yet harmony. Passion, yet serenity.' Vandar: 'Ignorance, yet knowledge. Emotion, yet peace. The Force is one.' Yoda: 'Each one with the Force, Relin Druur, Vandar Tokare and Yoda are.' Dream 2: Relin: 'On assignment we guard the nexus of time, space and imagination.' Vandar: 'Future asks the past for an alternative to default destination.' Yoda again: 'With a future always in motion possible to grant the petition is.' Dream 3: Relin: 'Conflicting appointments scheduled with two divergent destinies.' Vandar: 'Your obedience or negligence decides which appointment is kept.' Yoda: 'Ultimately affect the entire galaxy, your course-of-action shall.” Destiny halted.

“Dream 4:” Leia read aloud, using the Galactic Basic chart on her smartphone to translate after Destiny had passed her the paper, continuing from where she had just left off. “Relin: 'If the original mistakes are repeated more bloodshed lies ahead.' Vandar: 'Fatality awaits Meetra Surik if she pursues Revan without help.' Yoda: 'If the Exile pursues Revan solely, to return she is destined not.' Dream 5: Relin: 'These two people are chosen to join the Exile's quest for Revan.' Vandar: 'The presence of Carth Onasi activates the superior appointment.' and Yoda: 'Needed for uncommon insight, the participation of Jolee Bindo is.' Dream 6: Relin: 'A prince of darkness predating my generation sows evil in yours.' Vandar: 'Having sown bloodshed for millennia he now pursues galacticide.' Yoda: 'Forewarned though the ancient prince is, set his own trap he has.”

“Dream 7:” Jeff read aloud without needing a reference image, fully literate in Galactic Basic, knowing Aurebesh by heart, continuing where Leia had left off before passing him the paper. “Vandar: 'Imaginative imagines an alternative to the default destination.' Relin: 'Their extraordinary affections avail galactic course correction.' Yoda: 'Imaginative's academic knowledge her instinctual belief precedes.' Dream 8: Vandar: 'The Katarr Massacre caused the unlocking of Opportunity's door.' Yoda: 'Opened Opportunity's door the defeat of the Sith triumvirate has.' 'Relin: 'If the Exile proceeds alone Opportunity's door closes and locks.' Dream 9: Yoda: 'Upon Revan and the Exile's fates, the future of the galaxy rests.' Vandar: 'A refusal to heed us rejects the future's petition to the past.' Relin: 'Rejection of petition keeps the default destination appointment.”

“Dream 10:” Leia resumed reading out loud using her smartphone chart after Jeff had passed the paper to her, continuing where he had left off. “Yoda: 'Needed for uncommon insight, the participation of Jolee Bindo is. Vandar: 'The presence of Carth Onasi activates the superior appointment.' then Relin: 'These two people are chosen to join the Exile's quest for Revan.' Dream 11: Yoda: 'If the Exile pursues Revan solely, to return she is destined not.' Vandar: 'Fatality awaits Meetra Surik if she pursues Revan without help.' Relin: 'If the original mistakes are repeated more bloodshed lies ahead.' Dream 12: Yoda: 'Ultimately affect the entire galaxy, your course-of-action shall.' Vandar: 'Your obedience or negligence decides which appointment is kept.' Relin: 'Conflicting appointments scheduled with two divergent destinies.” Leia passed it back to Destiny.

“Dream 13:” Destiny resumed reading aloud, ”Yoda: 'With a future always in motion possible to grant the petition is.' Vandar: 'Future asks the past for an alternative to default destination.' Relin: 'On assignment we guard the nexus of time, space and imagination.' Dream 14: Yoda: 'Each one with the Force, Relin Druur, Vandar Tokare and Yoda are.' Vandar: 'The Force is one. Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge.' Relin: 'Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet the Force.' and then Dream 15: Vandar: 'You stand in Opportunity's doorway, your mission is before you.' Yoda: 'When doing logically cannot save you, the illogical you must try.' Relin: 'The Force knows the end from the start but you retain free will.' Them speaking together: 'Trust in the Force. May the Force be with you.” she finished, and everybody sat in deep thought.

“Wow.” Leia marveled as Destiny returned the paper to Jolee, “Canon never picked that up, but to my knowledge, 'the Force is one' is _not_ a part of the Jedi Code, and those masters never said 'go to Thule.”

289/2017, LATE MORNING ~ DESTINY'S PROPERTY, BLAINE, WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ~ EARTH

“On the morning of the sixty-fourth,” Jolee explained, “I had summoned Carth and Meetra to a diner on Citadel Station for breakfast,” Carth was suddenly struck by the irony of the diner's name, 'Black Hole Diner', “and I had disclosed my then-14-night series of dreams to them. Afterwards, Carth had surprised me by disclosing his own dreams from that same period and we hatched a circumstantial test to check whether obeying my dreams was even feasible, given Carth's military duties. We had him request the longest personal Vacation Leave of Duty allowable in the Republic Navy – 175 days or five Standard months. It's notorious for rarely, if ever being granted and never without complaint from the official receiving the request, especially when no specific reason for the request is given. When Carth sent in the request to Coruscant by holonet – the Republic's intergalactic communications network – Grand Admiral Dodonna responded less than fifteen minutes after he had sent in the request, approving it without complaint and telling him to enjoy his vacation.”

“I'm guessing an all-expenses-paid black-hole-surf to another galaxy and abandoning-ship in a flawed parachute for a near-fatal dunk in a swimming pool _wasn't_ in your vacation plans?” Jeff quipped at Carth.

“That's a pretty safe 'no'.” Carth replied with a sardonic chuckle. “As for Thule, Surik had wanted to chart the edge of space just outside the Stygian Caldera – a notorious Sith-infested region – in case Revan had ended up on a planet we didn't know about, yet. The astrocartography was fine before the black hole – which should have showed up on sensors before that last jump initiated – I don't know how they missed it.”

“They might have missed it if it wasn't a normal black hole.” Destiny answered, everyone at the table looking at her, and she shrugged. “Look, Jeff is the physics and astrophysics genius sitting at this table, not Leia or myself, but it makes sense. Relin said they guard the 'nexus of time, space and imagination' and then a ship and three people who are supposed to be imaginary show up on Earth. Your black hole is the nexus.”

“But how are we supposed to get back home?” Carth asked, hoping the Earthians were wrong and they were still in their own galaxy, “We don't have our ship and black holes can't safely open up on planets.”

“I don't know how you guys will all get back,” Destiny said quietly, her eyes averted sadly, “but you can't change your galaxy's future – and Revan's – with the knowledge you acquire here unless you do. Also, the structure of Jolee's dreams – the shifting speaker order and the inverted delivery order in dreams 10 through 14 – signified a round-trip to me. Your galactic departure will be up to the Force – not any of you.” She looked up and looked around the table, “By the way, August Thirteen, Twenty-Seventeen was the first day of 32,503, making August Twelve the last day of 32502. Meetra, when exactly did you finish off Malachor?”

Surik looked at Carth and Jolee, clearly bothered that the Earthians knew so much. “On 343/32,502,” Surik said. “When I saw the chrono while we were jumping out of the system, it showed the time 11:00.”

“Huh.” Jeff said, frowning in thought while Destiny resumed using her laptop _Pee-See_, “Now why does that time keep coming up? 90 days ago... if Battle of Telos was 105 days ago... it was on 328/32,503?” “That's correct.” Carth answered while nodding, then Leia looked at Jeff with a troubled, disturbed and confused expression. “Is there something wrong, Leia?” Carth inquired before they both glanced at him.

“Kinda.” Destiny said, looking up from her console at him, “by your guys' count, Vandar's death was 751 days ago, the Battle of Telos was 105 days ago and Malachor's final destruction 90 days ago, but we – or at least our video game developers – have known of it for about 14 _years_ since late two-thousand-three, which includes four leap-years. They have known of the Battle of Rakata Prime for even longer than that – since late nineteen-ninety-nine 18 years ago. But 32495 was only eight years ago for you guys, so either our creative writers were given insight into your future – which is possible since we know of Yoda and were introduced to your galaxy with stories 4,000 years ahead of your – or our times aren't passing in sync or our seconds, minutes and days aren't the same. What is the speed of light per second in a vacuum?” she asked.

“299,792,458 meters per second.” Carth replied, knowing that information by heart as part of his starpilot training, “17,987,547,480 meters per 60-second-minute, 1,079,252,848,800 meters per 60-minute-hour, 25,902,068,371,200 meters per 24 hour-day and 9,531,961,160,601,600 meters per 368-day year. You can divide all those by 1,000 to convert to kilometers but the meter and the second are our base units.”

“The majority of _Yoo-Ess_ civilians still use imperial measurements like inch, foot, yard and mile for length or distance, ounce and pound for mass or weight and the degrees _Fairanheight_ for temperature which places frozen water at 32 degrees and boiling water at 212 degrees.” Jeff said, “But the _Yoo-Ess_ military and most of the nearly 200 countries on Earth use the metric system by now. That means centimeter, meter and kilometer for distance, gram, kilogram, ton and kiloton for mass or weight; degrees centigrade for temperature which places frozen water at zero degrees and boiling water at 100 degrees, and your answers match our measures – meaning the constants between our two galaxies remain, well, constant – except for a light-year which we would measure at three or two days less because our annual rotation is shorter than Coruscant's.”

“Dustil's twenty-second birthday is on November Twelve, Twenty-Seventeen and his birth on September Thirteen, Nineteen-ninety-five.” Destiny declared, “Revan's forty-fourth birthday is on August Eleven, Twenty-eighteen and his birth on _Aurek-pesh-resh-isk-leth_ April Fourteen, Nineteen-seventy-four. Bastila's twenty-fifth birthday is on Meetra's thirty-fifth while her birth was on September Ten, Nineteen-ninety-two. Vaner's fourth birthday is on Revan's forty-fourth while his birth was on July Thirty One, Twenty-Fourteen. Vandar was born December Three, Eleven-hundred-eight and died September Twenty-six, Twenty-fifteen.”

10/16/2017 AD, 11:12 AM, PDT ~ DESTINY'S PROPERTY, BLAINE, WA, USA ~ EARTH

“What was your dream, Carth?” Leia asked just as Destiny had thought back and wondered the same thing, then Leia glanced at Meetra, “Didn't Bastila tell you Rekkiad was Revan's last known destination?”

Meetra looked uncomfortable as Carth looked at her and scrutinized her with a suspicious expression while Destiny observed. “In my dreams on the 50th through 64th,” Carth said, glancing at Leia, “I relived a private conversation Surik and I had late on the 328th following the conclusion of the Battle of Telos. I asked, since she had Revan's ship, if she had found any trace of Revan. I told her about how I had met him during the Jedi Civil War and about things that had transpired after the war, all the way until his solitary departure from Republic space. I had told her that whatever he had set out to do I didn't think he had succeeded. In the first discussion we had been alone but in the 14 relived dream versions, an unseen anonymous speaker replies warning she – meaning Surik – wouldn't succeed either or survive to return if she went after Revan alone.”

“Well, whoever the speaker is or was,” Jeff answered, “she was right. Our _Star Wars_ canon says that Meetra Surik and Trill-3 found and freed Revan from the dungeon of Darth Nyriss – a biological Sith – in 32,503 or what we know more familiarly as 3950 BBY – Before the Battle of Yavin in 36,453 – on Dromund Kaas with the aid of another biological Sith named Scourge, an apprentice of Nyriss. Scourge caused the Emperor's Imperial guard to attack Nyriss' compound, enabling Meetra, Trill-3 and himself to make it down to the dungeon Revan was imprisoned in. After Scourge had fetched an antidote to the Force-dulling drugs in the system and Revan was alert again, Meetra had gave Revan his old Cathar-acquired Mandalorian mask back – which Bastila had kept hidden ever since she had saved him in 32,496 before until handing it over to Meetra – he instantly recalled everything which had first led him and Malak to Dromund Kaas in 32,493 – stopping at Rekkiad and Nathema first – the first time. He remembered a Sith Emperor known as Vitiate.”

“Tenebrae,” Jeff continued, “was a pureblood Sith sired by Sith lord Dramath, the ruler of the agrarian planet Medriaas in the Chorlian Sector, and the wife of a poor farmer. He was born in 31,340 and by the age of ten, he had already killed his stepfather, mother, had massacred thousands and eventually killed his biological father as well. Upon being given rule over the planet by Marka Ragnos, he renamed it Nathema and kept it isolated from other ambitious Sith lords. His decision preserved Nathema through Naga Sadow's the Great Hyperspace War and in 31,454 Vitiate summoned 8,000 remaining Sith lords to Nathema and seized their minds, compelling them to participate in a complex ritual that combined their collective power with a superweapon called Zildrog. Upon completion of the ritual, living Force had been stripped from everything on the planet – think Katarr – and transferred into Vitiate, killing everyone and everything else while granting him a form of immortality. Then he gathered Sith remnants of the Sith Empire and led them to Dromund Kaas.”

“He had been on Dromund Kaas in the Esstran Sector since 31,474,” Jeff continued, “1,020 years by the time Revan and Malak found it near the end of 32,493 and start of 32,494. Mandalore the Ultimate's dying confession to Revan was that he had been deceived by a red-skinned Sith, an emissary of Emperor Vitiate, on the planet Rekkiad in 32,475 and that he would find the proof if he went there. They went there to the ice planet and found the Tomb of Dramath the Second, a half-brother of Tenebrae that had died in 31,453, which contained a datacron about his history. Revan and Malak had left the Mandalore mask in the tomb and then traveled to Nathema, which was where they discovered the since-Force-drained planet. There, they had found information ultimately leading them to Dromund Kaas, the thriving planet of Sith, biological and otherwise. After some investigation, they had learned Vitiate was planning to invade the Republic while it was still weak from the Mandalorian Wars. Revan and Malak's mistake was confront this freak by themselves.”

“I think they should have returned to the Republic to tell them of Dromund Kaas ensure they were made aware of the threat.” Jeff continued, “Instead, Vitiate seized control of their minds like he had those Sith lords on Nathema and twisted them to the Dark side, naming them Darth Revan and Darth Malak and then sending them to hunt down the Star Forge they had heard about in the ruins of Dantooine's Rakatan Temple so they could wage war on the Republic in-service to Vitiate. But by the time they had found it and stepped aboard, Revan, but not Malak, had broken free of the mind control but not before his mind had twisted into thinking he wanted to conquer the Republic so he could take out Vitiate. The Dark-side energies of the Star Forge hadn't helped and you guys know the result of that. Back to 32,494, Meetra, Trill-3 and Scourge got Revan out of Nyriss' compound and they all stayed in a cave for the night, discussing the Emperor and planning an assassination to stop him and then Revan watched Vaner's latest birthday recording stored on Trill-3.”

“When they finally moved on the Emperor's citadel,” Jeff continued, “they had to battle the Imperial guard just to make it and into the throne room. Once there, they battled the Emperor, suffering many injuries with Trill-3 being destroyed after using its flamethrower on Vitiate while Vitiate had been trying to fry Revan alive. But they eventually had the Emperor surrounded and were about to kill him when Scourge got a vision of the future from somewhere showing their assassination attempt would fail and that another would kill the Emperor at another time. To hide his role in their plot and save his cowardly ass, Scourge stabbed Meetra in the back between her shoulder blades with a lightsaber, killing her and dooming Revan to three centuries of torturous captivity, being preserved by Sith alchemy, mentally battling Vitiate as Meetra lingered as a Force-ghost to help him cope. In 32,772 the Republic got mired in a 28-year war with the Sith while Vitiate, unsatisfied with just one Empire, secretly built another to both Sith and Republic.” Jeff finished and then fell silent.


	10. Something I Must Confess...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've stuck with this work through all of its evolutions, thank you. If you already read the previous nine chapters prior to 10/23/2020 and you intend to read beyond this one, I STRONGLY encourage you to reread them as there have been some VERY significant updates. Thank you for your patience, enjoy the story and may the Force be with you.

289/2017, LATE-MORNING ~ DESTINY'S PROPERTY, BLAINE, WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ~ EARTH

A long silence at the table followed, Carth trying to absorb the new information which had just radically reshaped his understanding of the Republic's last 30 years of history. “A prince of darkness predating my generation sows evil in yours.” Jolee finally said, drawing everyone's gazes, “That's what Relin Druur told us and he was born on 186/31,409 according to historical databases. Vitiate must be that prince of darkness.”

“Relin didn't die in that faulty hyper-jump.” Jeff said, surprising them, “ He died in 36,494 after that faulty hyper-jump sent him five millennia into the future; and he died a Dark-sider, influenced by Lignan ore.”

“You're saying Relin Druur didn't die on 065/31,453,” Jolee said eyeing the Earthian tenuously while Destiny resumed using her laptop console, “but 5,041 years later and fell to the Dark side before he died?”

“Aboard the _Harbinger_,” Jeff explained, “Relin had set explosive charges on the hyperdrive to ensure the Lignan ore wouldn't be delivered. Then he dueled with Rrogan and lost his left arm before the charges exploded, damaging the hyperdrive and knocking out Rrogon and Relin headed to the escape pods. But the _Harbinger_'s jump sequence was still continuing and Padawan Drev Hassin, in a starfighter nearby, saw this and rammed the bridge. Relin had barely made it off the _Harbinger_ when it hyper-jumped, failing to fully enter its hyperlane and traveling forward in time, dragging the pod with it. After arriving in 36,494, Relin got to a freighter called the _Junker_ and met a Jedi of the era who deduced what had happened. After destroying starfighters Rrogan sent to destroy the _Junker_, Relin and the _Junker_'s first mate boarded the _Harbinger_ then, while fighting Massassi, Relin realized he was accidentally using the Lignan as he realized he was liking the killing. He sent the first mate away then embraced the Dark-side, dying when the _Harbinger_ was destroyed.”

Carth, Jolee and Surik exchanged glances after Jeff had finished, “Isn't it possible your canon got that last part wrong?” Surik asked, “I doubt Vandar would associate with Relin Druur, if what you say is true.”

“It's possible,” Jeff nodded, “and given that Relin is involved with this, I'd even say probable – as I don't see any other logical reason for the discrepancy. But that information, right or wrong, is what we have.”

“For now, anyways.” Destiny said thoughtfully, “I've told Jeff and Leia in the past that I found it curious that the span of time between Vandar's death and Yoda's death is 3,956 years. _Star Wars_ canon uses a dating paradigm known as Before Battle of Yavin and After Battle of Yavin, abbreviated as _Bee-Bee-Wy_ and _Ei-Bee-Wy_ , and the first year we were introduced to in your millennium was 3956 _Bee-Bee-Wy_ in 32,497.”

“There's something I must confess, in light of all I've heard.” Surik said, Jolee and Carth looking at her, Carth suspecting he knew what it was. “Two things, actually. The first is, had Jolee not summoned me to the diner, my very next jump would have been to Rekkiad. While I was on Coruscant reestablishing the Order, Bastila spoke with me, adding the birthday holo to Trill-3 and giving me Revan's mask from Cathar – it's currently in a safe aboard the ship in the Starboard dormitory. I'd had doubts about the interpretation of your dreams and didn't want to bring you both to Rekkiad with me until my doubts were gone.” Carth clenched his jaw, angry that she had lied to both him and Jolee. “And then, when I said I had only had recurring dreams of a personal nature, I didn't mention it had been for the same consecutive number of nights as yours. But I noticed a flag – red and white stripes and white stars on a panel of blue – held in a bracket on the exterior of this house facing the, um, Kashyyyk yard, and recognized it from my 14-night recurring dream.” she said.

“Whoa!” Leia exclaimed, “you saw the flag of the United States of America in your dream 14 nights in a row, while still in your galaxy?!” Carth cocked an eyebrow. “What happened in the dream?” she asked.

“All I know,” Surik sighed, “was there was a man standing cloaked in the flag, his head hooded and face hidden by shadow, Galactic basic text floated above his head saying, 'A man born under a different flag will put on yours for you.' After that the flag he wore changed to the Galactic Republic's flag and the floating text above his head changed to symbols of a written language I had never seen before in my life until today.”

“I had another dream, too.” Carth interjected, clearing his throat, and everyone looked at him. “It was also of a personal nature which is why I didn't talk about it – but it recurred the same nights the other one did.” He paused in clear hesitation before continuing, “My late wife was nagging me for still being alone after her being gone for eight years, and I told her no woman in the galaxy could replace what she meant to me.”

When Carth and Surik had glanced at Jolee expectantly, the old man scowled furrowing his bushy white eyebrows, “What are you looking at me for?” he scolded grumpily, “I told you _all_ my dreams already.”

“Contacting our president about your ship,” Destiny said, changing the subject, “which you would have to cross international borders to reach, will take time and we'll start the process in 16 days from now but it may still take longer than- that, though – especially if the _Ebon Hawk_ suffered damage hitting the Pacific Ocean and taking on saltwater. In the interim, helping you acquire the knowledge necessary to make the most of this mission the Force has you on is a top priority for me now and since no one knows when the Force will bring you home, we should use the time wisely. I – we – want to brief you on everything that we think we know about your galaxy. We also want to teach you about Earth and the written English language so you can research more about your galaxy on our computers over the internet – a planetary version of your holonet. I'm offering you free housing, nourishment, provisions, transportation and education for as long as you need them so that all you need to worry about is acquiring intel about your galaxy. What do you say?” she asked.

Carth and his shipmates exchanged glances, Carth himself feeling that the offer was generous and that they should accept it at least long enough to get literate. “We accept.” Surik answered, looking at Destiny.

10/16/2017 AD, 11:36 PM, PDT ~ DESTINY'S PROPERTY, BLAINE, WA, USA ~ EARTH

“Excellent.” Destiny said as she stood up, “While I fetch things for your introductory _Star Wars_ briefing, if you need a bathroom, there's the one in the utility room, one in the hallway off the kitchen and the one in my gym that you know about. I'll be back.” She left and collected _Star Wars_ media and returned to the table just as Jolee did, the others already there and the table clear of everything except her laptop. She set her armload of comic books, DVD and game cases on the table and sat down as Jeff and Leia returned to the table. “Please, pass this on to your shipmates after you look at it.” Destiny requested, passing Carth the _Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope_ DVD case. “In 1977, _Star Wars_, a motion-picture film, which we call movies written and directed by George Lucas, was released. The characters include human Luke Skywalker, human Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan, a human Jedi Obi-wan Kenobi, human smuggler Han Solo, Han's Wookiee first mate Chewbacca, astromech droid R2-D2, protocol droid C-3PO and human Darth Vader.”

“While not declared in the film,” she continued, “it is set in the year you call 36,453, which is 19 years after the Galactic Republic Senate had voted to make the Galactic Republic into the Galactic Empire with Supreme Chancellor Palpatine becoming Emperor – who had before that time been hiding his identity as the Sith Lord Darth Sidious while having his apprentice Darth Tyranus – publicly known as Count Dooku of the Confederacy of Independent Systems – war upon against the Republic from the outside. On Tatooine, Luke's moisture-farming step-uncle and aunt buy R2-D2 and C-3PO from Jawas who had scavenged them from wreckage after they had broken the Imperial blockade to reach the surface. Luke discovers an urgent holo-message stored on R2 from a woman to 'Obi-wan' Kenobi. Luke had only heard of Ben Kenobi, a friend of his late father, Anakin Skywalker, whom he had never met. When Luke and C-3PO aren't looking, R2 runs away and they pursue it. After a Sand-People attack, they encounter Ben and learn he is Obi-wan Kenobi.”

“Obi-wan tells Luke that his father had been a Jedi and gives him his father's lightsaber and R2 plays a complete holo-message from Princess Leia to Obi-wan. Meanwhile, Imperial forces kill anyone who had had contact with the droids, including the Jawas and Luke's family. Obi-wan, Luke and the droids hitch a ride to Alderaan with Han and Chewbacca aboard the _Millennium Falcon, a_rriving not long after it has been destroyed by Vader's Death Star, a battle station the size of a small moon that can turn planets into asteroid fields with a single shot. The _Millennium Falcon_ is tractored into a hangar while the crew hides in smuggling compartments. Obi-wan separates from them to search for Vader while the others find out Leia is prisoner on board and free her. They catch up to Obi-wan during his lightsaber duel with Vader, witnessing Obi-wan's death, then reach the _Millennium Falcon_ and flee the station. They reach the Yavin base of the Rebel Alliance to Restore the Republic and retrieve the schematics of the Death Star from R2 that Leia had saved on it.”

“They learn of a vulnerable spot in the Death Star's design before it reaches the Yavin system,” she continued, “having tracked the _Millennium Falcon _by beacon. Before it can reach firing range, the Battle of Yavin begins and rebel fighters advance on the Death Star. Luke hits the vulnerable spot before rebels break off the attack and when the Sith try to fire at the base, the Death Star is destroyed. The movie did well and was retroactively renamed _Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. _In 1980,” she said, passing Carth the _Episode V_ DVD case, “_Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back_ was released. Set in 36,456, the Empire has been chasing the rebels, especially Luke, Han, Leia and Chewbacca, for three years. Ghost Obi-wan tells Luke to visit Yoda on Dagobah for further training. While Luke's busy, Han, Leia and Chewbacca visit a friend of Han's on Bespin and become captives of Vader. Luke has visions of his friends in pain and interrupts his training to rescue them. During Luke's duel with Vader, Vader informs Luke that he is his father.”

“In 1983,” Destiny continued, passing Carth the Episode _VI_ DVD case, “_Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi_ was released. Set in 36,457, Luke returns to Dagobah to finish his Jedi training but finds Yoda about to die. He tells Luke that his training is complete and that confronting Vader is his final test before he becomes a full Jedi. Yoda confirms Vader is his father and also tells Luke he will be the last Jedi after he – meaning Yoda – dies, to teach others what he has learned and that there is another Skywalker, then Yoda dies. Obi-wan later tells Luke that Leia is his twin sister and that they had been separated after birth to hide their existence from the Emperor who would kill them to eliminate the threat. Luke duels with Vader again and tries talking him back over to the light and the Emperor arrives and fights Luke himself. Sidious is gleefully delivering his death strike when Anakin interrupts him and saves Luke, suffering the harm himself while killing Sidious. Anakin and Luke reconcile then Anakin dies and is seen as a ghost alongside Obi-wan and Yoda.”

“In 1999,” she continued, passing Carth the _Episode I_ DVD case, “_Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace_ was released. Set in 36,421, Yoda's Grandmaster of the Jedi High Council and Palpatine's Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic. Anakin and Padme Amidala, Luke and Leia's future mother, meet as children while Padme travels from her Naboo homeworld to Coruscant under diplomatic protection of Jedi Qui-gon Jinn and his padawan Obi-wan. Found by Jinn during a stop on Tatooine, Anakin is tested for Force-sensitivity and is found more sensitive than Yoda and Jinn takes Anakin with them. Jinn is wounded by Darth Maul – a Sith Zabrak – and while dying asks Obi-wan to train Anakin and he is accepted into the Jedi Order. In 2002,” she continued, passing the _Episode II_ DVD case to Carth, “_Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, _was released. In 36,431, Anakin is 20, a Padawan, and Padme is 24, Senator of Naboo and Palpatine wants to create an army of cloned soldiers to discourage secession by member worlds.”

289/2017, LATE-MORNING ~ DESTINY'S PROPERTY, BLAINE, WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ~ EARTH

“Anakin and Obi-wan thwart assassination attempts against Padme,” Destiny said while Carth and his shipmates listened, “an opponent of declaring war on the Confederacy of Independent Systems – none of them knowing Palpatine/Sidious in the Republic and Dooku/Tyranus in the Cresh-Isk-Senth are on the same team. Padme and Anakin go to Naboo while Obi-wan visits the origin planet of the dart that had killed one of her failed assassins before they could reveal anything. At Kamino, Obi-wan learns from the Kaminoans that the Republic has a decade-old cloning program. After questioning Mandalorian bounty hunter Jango Fett, whose genome is the clone template, about the assassination attempts, Obi-wan follows Fett to Geonosis where he discovers a Cresh-Isk-Senth capital, their part in trying to kill Padme and a mass-production battle-droid factory. Anakin is driven to Tatooine by dreams of his mother where he meets his step-family before finding his mother near death as a captive in the Sand People village – after her death killing the entire village.”

“Anakin, Padme, _Aur-2-Dee-2_ learn Obi-wan is in trouble and go to Geonosis with _See-3-Pee-Oh_ to aid him.” Destiny continued. “When the Republic Senate learns of the droid factory, they grant emergency powers to Palpatine who authorizes the creation of the cloned Grand Army of the Republic. The Clone Wars begin on Geonosis and Anakin and Padme secretly marry on Naboo. In Two-thousand-five,” she went on, passing Carth a sixth case, “ _Star Wars: Episode 3 – Revenge of the Sith_.was released. Set in 36,434, the Clone Wars have lasted for three years and the Republic has gained the upper-hand but at great expense as it is buried in debt. Palpatine has since befriended Anakin, subtly deepening his mistrust and resentment of the Jedi High council, and eventually using him to execute a weaponless Dooku. Padme announces to Anakin that she's pregnant and the months pass on, with the Jedi and Clone Army in hot pursuit of General Grievous, a male Kaleesh Sith and Supreme Commander of the Separatist Clone Army, in the effort to win the war.”

“Anakin is haunted by dreams hinting that Padme will die in childbirth,” she continued, “and Sidious lures Anakin by telling him of powers that can keep people from ever dying but telling him that he can't learn those powers from a Jedi. Later, as Republic forces go to finish off Grievous while Anakin is kept behind, Sidious reveals himself to Anakin. Anakin tells Mace Windu the Jedi High Council who then goes to confront Sidious. Just as Windu was about to finish off Sidious, Anakin cuts off Mace's weapon-wielding arm and Sidious throws him off the high-rise building and then Anakin breaks down and swears his allegiance to Sidious who designates him Darth Vader. After sending Vader to the Jedi Temple to kill all Jedi. Sidious transmits a comm order to Republic clones army clones everywhere, triggering built-in programming chip in their brains to redefine 'enemy' as any Jedi within their vicinity – who aren't expecting it after three years of fighting alongside the clones. Sidious then sends Vader to Mustafar to slay the Separatist council to end the Clone Wars.”

“Yoda and Obi-wan are the only Jedi to survive the massacre,” Destiny continued, “returning to the Jedi Temple to discover the carnage and find a security recording showing Anakin killing everyone, including young children. While Yoda confronts Palpatine, Obi-wan talks to Padme, asking her where Anakin is before telling her what they had found at the Jedi Temple – and then guessing that Anakin is the father of the baby – none of them yet knowing knowing she's pregnant with twins. Thinking Obi-wan has left, Padme takes her ship to Mustafar, where Vader had previously mentioned he'd be going. Padme arrives, greeting Vader after he had finished his task from Sidious, and confronts him with what Obi-wan told her. They're arguing when Obi-wan steps off Padme's ship, having stowed away, but Vader thinks she betrayed him and starts choking her. She falls to the ground unconscious and Obi-wan and Vader duel, Vader losing limbs in their battle before Obi-wan leaves Vader to get Padme off Mustafar. Padme delivers her twins early, names them and dies.”

“In mid Two-thousand-three,” she continued, passing Carth another black plastic case, thicker than the previous ones and bearing illustrations resembling Malak, Bastila and the _Ebon Hawk_, “a screen-based, interactive game we call a video game, _Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, _was released. The playing character wakes up in Revan's amnesiac role, the game spanning from Malak's ambush of the _Endar Spire_ over Taris to the Cross of Glory ceremony on Rakata Prime after destroying the Star Forge.” Carth cocked an eyebrow incredulously. “In late Two-thousand-four, the sequel to that game, _Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic – The Sith Lords_ was released. Although _Tee-3-Em-4_ starts the game, the playing character is actually in 'the Exile's role, while the canonical name 'Meetra Surik' isn't spoken in-game. The game spans from the _Ebon Hawk_'s arrival to Peragus 2 to the _Ebon Hawk_'s departure from the imploding Malachor 5 after 'The Exile' has defeated Darth's Sion and Traya, Darth Nihilus having been vanquished earlier at Telos.”

“In early Two-thousand-six,” Destiny continued, picking up a clear, flat sealed bag with a thin, soft-cover illustrated book inside and passing it to Carth, “_Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic_ – the first of a 50-issue illustrated periodical-type we call comic books – was released, following the adventures of Zayne Carrick from just before he was framed on Taris for murder, an additional five issues in Twenty-Twelve after the 50 showing parts of the Mandalorian Wars. In late Twenty-Eleven, another video game called _Star Wars: The Old Republic_ was released, which lays to bare all the things that we hope your detour here changes.” When she fell silent after that, Carth glanced at his crewmates, unsure how to respond to everything he had heard. “You know what?” Destiny said and they looked at her again, “I know this has gotta be a lot for you to absorb. Jeff and Leia can take you up to their place, to take your _eye-dee_ pictures and forge your vital documents, while I assemble your study materials about our local written language and planet into notebooks.”


End file.
